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Little Novels of 
Nowadays 


PHILIP GIBBS 


By SIR PHILIP GIBBS 


HEIRS APPARENT 
THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 
THE STREET OF ADVENTURE 
WOUNDED SOULS 

PEOPLE OF DESTINY 

THE SOUL OF THE WAR 

THE BATTLES OF THE SOMME 
THE STRUGGLE IN FLANDERS 
THE way To vicTory, 2 Vols. 
NOW IT CAN BE TOLD 

‘MORE THAT MUST BE TOLD 


Little Novels of 
LVowadays 


BY 


Filip Gibbs 


GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 


Copyright, 1924, 
By George H. Doran Company 


LITTLE NOVELS OF NOWADAYS 


— B- 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


+ 
— 
% 


PREFACE 


HE stories in this book are connected ,by a thread of 

plot which I have followed from London to Moscow 
and beyond through other cities. It is the thread of fate 
woven by the three ugly sisters in the wake of war, and 
fastened round the necks of men and women so that they 
can hardly escape from the wreckage of hopes in the life of 
Europe. In most of these tales my characters are victims 
of war and casualties of peace trying to find a way out of 
misery or to avert the perils ahead, by violence or charity. 
They are tales of yesterday, or at least of yesterdays not 
older than a year or two. My idea in writing them was to 
put in the form of little novels—rather different from “short 
stories’—not only plots suggested to me by incidents with 
which I came in touch or characters whom I saw in passing 
—those casual hints which build up in one’s mind until they 
make a tale with a touch of drama—but the thoughts and 
moods and hopes of Europe as I have seen it lately, the 
spirit of conversations. I have had with people who revealed 
themselves, and the clash of passionate convictions, old tra- 
ditions with new hopes, old hatreds with new faith, which 
I have seen on my travels since the war, and here at home. 
I have tried also in these stories to get something of the 
spirit of place into them, and not merely the outward look 
of cities and scenery. 

They have a touch of truth. That is to say they are true 
in type to the things that happened yesterday. One story 
of mine, The Stranger in the Village, is a picture of what 
I saw in a famine-stricken village on the Volga, although 
“the stranger” himself was only suggested by a common 
belief and did not come when I was there. But the people 


-were waiting for death in their snow-bound houses, and 


did not have long to wait. In the story I have called Miss 
Vv 


Vi Preface ’ 


Smith of Smyrna, I have made use of the situation I found 
in that city of Asia Minor when I went there from Con- 
stantinople, and had a cold foreboding of the horror that 
came upon it. The characters of the Greek lieutenant and 
his wife are as I saw them in their house near the Turkish 
quarter, where the lady and her children sang to me one 
evening. “Miss Smith” is fictitious, suggested merely by 
an old Victorian lady whom I met in the house I have 
described. I am bound to mention that, because her story 
was believed to be true by many readers of an American 
magazine, who sent me anxious letters about the old lady’s 
fate. In America also this story aroused considerable con- 
troversy at a time when a committee was investigating the 
question of admitting to the United States immense num- 
bers of Greek refugees, starving and homeless after the 
burning of Smyrna. Americans who were against this pro- 
posal used my story as anti-Greek propaganda because of 
one incident I described, true in history, while others accused 
me of being anti-Turk. All my sympathy, I must.confess, 
was with the unfortunate Greeks, whose sufferings have been 
beyond description, and who still need the charity of the 
world, after that horror on the quayside of Smyrna. In my 
story, The Beggar of Berlin, I built a tale about a man 
whom I saw several times in Unter den Linden, and who 
looked like John the Baptist. He was once a rich banker, 
ruined after the war, but that is all I know of his life. The 
pictures I give of Berlin in the Russian cabaret and the 
great hotel will be recognised by any one who knows Berlin 
during the last year or two. So also in my story, A Mission 
in the Ruhr, I have merely put a little drama into the grim 
reality of that French occupation of Germany’s industrial 
stronghold as I saw it in Essen and other towns before the 
breakdown of passive resistance by the workers. It gives 
the French point of view at that time, as well as the Ger- 
man, fairly, I think. Without going into the details of other 
stories and telling just how much fact has gone to the fiction, 
I have already given away my underlying purpose and my 
method. Some literary critics will perhaps accuse me of 
using journalistic tricks as a substitute for literary ideals. 


Preface Vil 


As a novelist, I am already used to that jeer of “journalist.” 
But I venture to think that all fiction of greater interest than 
the usual love story must, and in most cases is, suggested 
by direct contact with history past or present and with living 
realities. The journalist should have the best chance in 
fiction because of his wide range of experience, and, indeed, 
looking at contemporary fiction and making no more than 
a passing reminder of Charles Dickens, who owed much of 
his knowledge of life to his reporting days, it will be noticed 
that many of the leading novelists of England and America 
have graduated in the school of journalism. Arnold Ben- 
nett was one, Kipling another, H. G. Wells is still a jour- 
nalist, “which perhaps accounts for it,’ as the cynic will 
say. The greatest stylist in England, one of the best short 
story writers, is C. E. Montague, of The Manchester 
Guardian. Sinclair Lewis, of Main Street, was a journalist 
for many years. I could mention a hundred other names 
of less distinction, though good craftsmen with a sense of 
art. It must be admitted therefore that journalistic expe- 
rience and some adaptation of journalistic method to litera- 
ture does not rule a man out from the realm of fiction. On 
the contrary, I am convinced that this experience and method 
are more than ever likely to produce good literature, and 
perhaps great literature. The weakness of so much modern 
fiction, especially that of women in the lower ranks, is due 
to its limited range of interest and knowledge. If they draw 
direct from life, it is so often only a little life of amorous 
emotion or neurotic psychology. That has its interest and 
its value, sometimes very great, if greatly written, but it is 
not the whole of life. And if weakly done, without art, as 
in so many novels, it is unprofitable and very tiring. The 
novelist of to-day, if he looks beyond his own doors, has 
no lack of vital material if he is in search of romance, sen- 
sation, melodrama, or the realities of human nature. This 
Europe of ours is full of great history and great action. 
It is soaked in the tragedy of nations, in the passion of 
peoples, in the despair of individual men and women. It is 
seething with hatred, with hope, with flaming ideals. Youth 
is groping for a new philosophy of life, or reasserting old 


Vill Preface 


creeds. Civilisation itself is threatened, or, at least, in the 
minds of many men and women there is that sense of im- 
pending downfall which was in the Greek and Roman mind 
in the last phases of their power. There are hunger and 
pestilence and revolt in countries not enormously remote. 
In every capital of Europe there are refugees who were once 
the spoilt children of fortune and are now in horrible pov- 
erty, princes and paupers, both. The old world of leisure 
and luxury and traditions is passing and nearly gone. A 
new world is coming, with desperate problems and many 
dangers. The adventure of life is not dull, anyhow! Is all 
that to be passed by in contemporary fiction, which is noth- 
ing if it does not interpret contemporary life? Are modern 
novelists and story writers to go on recording the little love 
tales of highly strung ladies and introspective men, and leave 
all that other world on one side because it frightens them, 
or they find it too big for their imagination, or too much in 
the newspapers? If so, then I, for one, would rather read 
The Daily Herald. I am asking for trouble in writing this 
preface. The journalist will be the first to shout “Jour- 
nalism!” But I think the public will agree with me, because 
it is significant that they are reading those books most which 
reveal even in a small measure the realities and moods and 
thoughts of this troubled world of to-day and yesterday. 
For my own stories I make no claim beyond the attempt to 
do that, with a sense of truth limited by my own small 
vision. 


PGs 


> 
XIT: 


CONTENTS 


THE STRANGER IN THE VILLAGE 
MISS SMITH OF SMYRNA 

THE BEGGAR OF BERLIN 

A BARGAIN IN THE KREMLIN 

THE VISIONS OF YVONNE 

THE CASTLE OF ARNSBERG . 

THE HOUSE WITH THE SPARE BEDROOMS 
THE WELLS OF TRUTH 

A GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL 
TURKISH DELIGHT 

THE GAME OF POVERTY 

A MISSION IN THE RUHR > 


PAGE 


13 
37 
64 
90 
122 
156 
183 
204 
L532 
oa 
281 
oe 


Lyttle Novels of Nowadays 


Little Novels of Nowadays 


I: THE STRANGER IN THE VILLAGE 


HE people of Lubimovka—those few who survived the 
famine which ravaged the Volga region of Russia in 
1920 and 1921—believe firmly to this day that Nicholas, Tsar 
of All the Russias, was not murdered by Bolsheviks, accord- 
ing to newspaper stories which professed to give full and 
lurid details of that historic tragedy, but actually came to 
their village more than a year after he was supposed to be 
dead, lived among them with humility and love, and left 
behind him a relic worshipfully reverenced as proof of his 
identity. 

It is an extraordinary story, and I confess when I heard 
it first from those Russian peasants and one young poet 
there, I regarded it merely as a variation of a myth which 
had been told me in Moscow, and once in a railway train on 
the way to Kazan, by highly educated Russians. They did 
not believe that the Tsar was dead. Some of them were 
convinced, without any evidence that seemed good to me, 
that he had escaped, or been allowed to escape, from his Bol- 
shevik guards and had become a monk in some remote mon- 
astery in Asiatic Russia. Others believed that he was wan- 
dering about in peasant garb from one district to another, 
begging his way, and only revealing himself to trusted 
friends, most of them in misery or in hiding like himself. 

It seemed to me the beginning of one of those fantastic 
traditions which spring up in popular imagination when some 
great personality disappears suddenly from the drama of life 
in which he played important parts. In the Middle Ages 
English kings murdered by their enemies, like Richard II or 

13 


14 Little Novels of Nowadays 


Edward II, were supposed to be alive long after their poor 
bodies had been buried secretly, and now and again a pre- 
tender took advantage of this popular belief. Even in Eng- 
land during the Great War there were thousands of people 
who refused to believe that Kitchener had been really 
drowned on the Hampshire, and asserted that he was a pris- 
oner in the hands of the Germans. It is no wander, there- 
fore, that in Russia, with its credulous and simple peasants, 
there should be a widespread belief that the Tsar, their Little 
Father as they called him before the revolution, should be 
still alive. : 

What is remarkable about the tale of this stranger who 
came to Lubimovka is the unshakable faith of a young man 
like the poet Sacha—a sceptic and intellectual—and the ap- 
parent self-delusion of the man himself. From everything 
Sacha tells me it seems probable that this Nicholas Alex- 
androvitch, as he called himself, confessed that he was the 
Tsar, or at least did not deny that title, although he had 
nothing to gain except hunger and death, apart from a mys- 
tical power over a few starving peasants. He may have been 
mad, though his conversation was full of wisdom and sweet- 
ness. Certainly he could not have been a common charlatan, 
for that kind of man does not behave as this man did with 
simple charity. On the other hand, he may have been—well, 
I will tell you the story just as it happened and as it was 
told to me by Sacha the poet, by Sonia the schoolmistress, 
and by Michael and his wife Anna. 


It was in the autumn of 1920, when the first snow had 
fallen, but before the Volga had frozen up. In the village 
of Lubimovka, as in all other villages along the Volga valley, 
there were hunger and disease and death and fear. Worse 
than death was that great fear of the agony ahead and of 
inescapable doom, as it seemed. Strong peasant men, un- 
afraid of death for themselves—many of them had fought 
against the Germans in the Great War with a simple and 
stubborn heroism in the midst of slaughter—trembled and 
felt their hearts turn to water when they saw their women 
weak with hunger and their children withering, and could 


The Stranger in the Village 15 


see no hope at all of getting fresh supplies of food when 
their scanty stores had gone, They could not fight against 
this death which crept into Lubimovka like a grey wolf, 
hungry for the little ones and the old people. 

It was in the afternoon of a day in middle October that 
the stranger came to the village. No one saw him enter 
through the gate in the stockade which surrounded the vil- 
lage according to the old custom of putting up a high fence 
to keep in the cattle and keep out the wolves. Now in Lubi- 
movka no barrier could keep the wolf from the door—the 
invisible hunger-wolf—and most of the cattle had already 
been killed because there was no fodder left to keep the 
cows alive. The stranger entered by the gate which opens 
on the road towards Tetiushi. His footsteps made black 
smudges in the snow that had newly fallen. A peasant girl, 
staring through the window of a little wooden house facing 
the village pump—she was praying that death might come 
quickly to her mother, who lay stricken with typhus on the 
bed above the stove—saw the man’s tall figure walking up 
the street towards the school-house. He was a bearded man 
with deep-set eyes which looked very sad, as this girl told 
Sacha. He wore a sheepskin coat and military boots, broken 
at the toes, and he walked like a soldier, with a straight 
back, but very slowly, as though exhausted after a long 
march, 

The girl was startled by the sight of him, because it was. 
a long time since any stranger had come to Lubimovka, and. 
instead of men coming to the village many had gone away 
after the summer when blackened crops stood in the burning 
sun which that year as well as last had utterly destroyed all 
hopes of harvest. They had gone away with their wives 
and children in boats down the Volga, hoping to reach dis- 
tricts where some food was left for winter months. Others 
had fought to get places on railway trains going towards 
Moscow, where there was always food according to the old 
proverb that “all things roll down to Moscow.” But dread- 
ful stories had come back of those refugee trains and those 
boatloads of people escaping from famine. It was months 
before the trains reached Moscow, and many died on the 


16 Little Novels of Nowadays 


way. On the boats typhus broke out, and people who. fled 
from famine found death in fever. It was better, perhaps, 
to stay in Lubimovka, and wait for death quietly at home. 
But it was strange that an unknown man should come to 
the village, walking like this in the snow which fell in thick 
flakes on his sheepskin coat and his ragged fur cap. That 
peasant girl, Maria, who was the daughter of the blacksmith, 
Boris Markovitch, had a stupid idea, which she told Sacha, 
that it was Death himself coming to Lubimovka. She was 
afraid and yet glad when the man turned his head towards 
the window from which she was staring out, and looked at 
her with his sad, kind eyes. “It is Death calling to me,” she 
thought, and crossed herself. But he passed on, and she 
still lived. 

It was a hundred yards farther on that the black smudges 
of his footsteps in the snow came to an end, and it was the 
peasant Michael who was the next to see this stranger. 

Michael had gone out into his yard to see his little cow, 
which was dying for lack of fodder. He had kept it alive 
by feeding it on cabbage stalks, which he had hidden in his 
cellar under a pile of sacks. His neighbours were angry 
with him because he kept it alive. They said: “Michael 
feeds his cow while our children die. He will burn in the 
next world because he cares more for his little cow than for 
our beautiful innocents who are withering like flowers. He 
has sold himself to the Devil.” 

Michael was afraid of that. Perhaps this love he had for 
his little cow was unholy and devilish. Perhaps God would 
punish him because he had given its milk to his own children 
and not a drop to his neighbours for their starving babes. 
But how could he share such a little milk with the whole 
village? He could at least keep his own family alive while 
the little cow was fed. Better that they should live than 
that all should die, and as for himself, he did not let a drop 
pass his lips, but munched only small morsels of bread made 
of leaves and straw and a few husks. Now there would be 
no more milk for his wife and the little ones. He had come 
to the end of his secret hoard of cabbage stalks. It was 
three days since the little cow had been fed. Its eyes were 


The Stranger in the Village Ly 


glazing. He could not bear its pitiful gaze, so full of re- 
proach that he had not the heart to kill it. 

It was when he came out of its shed cursing himself be- 
cause he had not the strength to kill it—it had licked his 
hand with a hot tongue—that he saw the stranger outside 
his house in the falling snow, and the long trail of black 
footsteps behind him. The stranger stood looking up the 
street, and his lips moved as though he were speaking, but 
suddenly he lurched sideways like a drunken man, and fell 
in a heap face downwards in the snow. 

Michael stared at him stupidly. Then a kind of anger 
crept into his brain. What business had this man to die 
outside his house? Why not stay and die decently in his 
own home without troubling his neighbours? It was prob- 
ably that foolish brute, Boris, the blacksmith, who had 
boasted so often of his great strength until typhus made him 
as weak as a maiden. The silly boaster! Michael was as 
strong as he was now, and still alive, though no blacksmith 
with arms like twisted wire. 

Michael strode towards him sullenly, and then saw it was 
not his old enemy the blacksmith, but some stranger. He 
could see that by the shape and colour of the man’s hands. 
They were not hands that belonged to men of Lubimovka. 
They were queer-looking hands for any man, not gnarled 
and blunt by honest work in fields and sheds, with axe and 
spade and pick, but like the hands of some fine lady, or like 
those of Sonia the schoolmistress. 

Michael turned over the man’s body as he lay crumpled 
up in the snow, and peered into his face. He seemed to have 
seen that bearded face before, those deep-set eyes, now 
closed, that straight nose. It was familiar to him in some 
vague way, like the memory of a face seen in a dream, or 
some picture. This man was dressed as a peasant. His 
sheepskin coat was torn. His soldier’s boots were broken 
at the toes like the boots of all those men who had come back 
from the war. But this was no peasant’s face. Even 
Michael, who was a stupid man, could see that. Lying there 
unconscious, grey as though the hand of death had touched 
it, it had a strange, noble look that was startling. 


18 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“He is like a saint,’ thought Michael. “He is even a 
little like the good Christ.” 

He had a sense of fear. There was something uncommon 
in the look of this senseless man who had come to a village 
from which other men fled, and where every one waited for 
death. How had he come? There were no more boats on 
the Volga because of the floating ice. There were no sledges 
from Tetiushi, or any other place, because the horses had all 
dropped dead on the roadsides. This man with hands like 
a woman and face like a saint had come in a miraculous 
way, suddenly, just as one heard in old Russian tales which 
old women told about the stove on winter nights. 

Michael called out to his wife: 

“Anna ly vAnnad? 

The fear in his voice brought her quickly to the door. 

“Have you killed the little cow?” she asked, and then saw 
her man leaning over the body in the snow. 

She crossed herself, and then leaned back, faint, against 
the doorpost. 

“May his soul know peace!” she said. 

Michael was angry with her because he was afraid. 

“Can’t you see his soul is still inside his body?” he 
growled. “Help me carry the wretch indoors. Snow makes 
a bad bed.” 

“You’re mad,” said Anna, drawing a shawl closer about 
her face. “If it’s typhus he’ll die better in the snow. And 
if it’s hunger, we have enough mouths to feed and no 
food.” 

“Tl kill the little cow,” said Michael. ‘“‘There will be 
meat to eat for a month or two. God will curse us if we 
leave this fool to die at our threshold. Take hold of his 
legs, or I'll beat you.” 

Anna came from her doorway and peered at the senseless 
man, and touched his forehead. 

“It’s not the typhus,” she said. “He’s as cold as the snow 
beneath him.” 

“Look at his hands,” said Michael. 

Anna looked at the hands lying limp on the snow, and 
then at the face above the sheepskin coat. 


The Stranger in the Village 19 


“He is like a saint in a picture-book,” she said, and put 
_ both hands on her bosom. 

The man and woman took hold of the senseless body. In 
the old days Michael and his wife could have lifted him as 
easily as a sack of potatoes, but hunger had weakened them. 
They dragged the stranger across their threshold, and then 
stood in their room, breathing heavily. Their little girl 
Katinka climbed down from the bed above the stove and 
stood with bare feet on the boards, clasping her mother’s 
hand. The baby was whimpering in its sleep in a cradle 
near the stove. 

It was the little girl who first ee the astounding revela- 
tion which afterwards was believed by all the people of 
Lubimovka, except Vladimir, the Soviet agent, and Braun- 
berg, the Jew, and Sara, his daughter. 

“He is like the Little Father,’ she said, and looked up at 
a mark on the wall opposite the ikon. It was a mark made 
by a picture-frame which had hung there for years, as in 
all Russian cottages before the revolution, where a portrait 
of the Tsar, cut from some newspaper or magazine, or re- 
produced in colour by German printers, had always hung 
opposite the holy ikon. It was strange that this child should 
have remembered, for it was more than a year since the 
picture had been taken down by orders of the local Soviet, 
which had prohibited all portraits of the last of the Ro- 
manovs. With her bare feet she pattered to a cupboard on 
the other side of the stove, and dragged out a coloured 
print in a wooden frame, and held it up. 

They were astounded and dismayed. 

“The child is an idiot,” said Michael sullenly. “Hunger 
has made her a little imbecile.” 

“It is a wonder we don’t all go mad,” said his wife. 

They stood there, staring first at the portrait, and then 
at the man stretched out at their feet. 

The portrait of the Tsar showed him in his uniform, with 
the star of St. Stanislaus at his breast. His beard was well- 
trimmed. He smiled out of his deep-set eyes. This man 
lying senseless on their bare boards had a ragged beard, and 
there was no smile on his face and no star at his breast. 


20 Little Novels of Nowadays 


And yet, now that Katinka had spoken her words, there 
could be no avoiding the amazing likeness of the stranger 
to that picture of the Emperor. Feature by feature it was 
the same face. The wide nostrils were the same, the low, 
broad forehead, the deep-set eye sockets. 

The two peasants, husband and wife, stood silent, ee 
their hands clasped and their mouths gaping. 

It was the husband who spoke first. 

“There are many Russians like the dead Tsar,” he said, 
but his voice trembled uncertainly. 

Anna, his wife, suddenly went down on her knees beside 
the stranger’s senseless body, and thrust her hand beneath 
his sheepskin’s coat, as though about to choke him. Her 
poor, claw-like hands, skinny with hunger, trembled fever- 
ishly. There was a thin silver chain round the man’s neck. 
She tugged at it, and with a jerk pulled something out from 
below a ragged vest. It was a jewel in the shape of a star, 
which lay now above the shaggy sheepskin. In that cottage 
of Lubimovka there was no light except the dusk of an 
October afternoon, with the white snow outside, but where 
the jewel lay it seemed to these peasants as though a real 
star had fallen from the sky, and was twinkling in their 
poor, bare room. 

Katinka clasped her thin little hands, and gave a cry of 
joy, as always she did when her father brought in a little 
milk from the cow. 

> Uruly,”. she: Said, it is ;theulittlesi athens 

Michael went down on his knees beside his wife, and 
stared at the star so closely that his straw-coloured beard 
almost touched it. He raised a trembling hand, and tried 
to take hold of the jewel; but something withheld him, 
and he shrank back fearfully with a queer, strangled 
cry. 

Anna swayed to and fro like a woman crooning to the 
dead. 

“Christ: Jesus!”she; cried) i) it issa miraclesot God. 

At that moment the man who had been senseless opened 
his eyes, and stirred with a little groan. 

As though trying to hide some dangerous and deadly 


The Stranger in the Village 21 


secret, Anna put her claw-like hands at his throat again, and 
thrust the star out of sight below his ragged vest. 

The man flung an arm over his head, and cried out in a 
faint, agonising voice: 

“Oh, Death!” 

Michael and his wife stayed there stiffly on their knees, 
staring at him in a dazed, frightened way. It was little 
Katinka who seemed to have most sense. She brought a jug 
of water from a shelf, and, wetting her little thin hand, 
moistened the man’s forehead, and put some drops on his 
lips and beard. Presently he turned-his head slightly, and 

smiled at her. 

“Am I dead at last?” he asked very faintly. “Are you 
one of my little daughters?” 

“You are my Little Father,” said Katinka. 

“Why, yes,” said the man, “I am the Little Father of all 
my dear people.” 

He spoke only in a whisper, but his words were heard 
clearly by Michael and his wife, kneeling on either side of 
him, 

“Gospodin!” said Michael, meaning Sir or Lord, “who 
are you, in God’s name?” 

The stranger heard the words and looked puzzled. For 
quite a long time he did not answer. Then he struggled up 
a little so that he leaned on one elbow, and stared round the 
dim room and into the faces of the peasant and his wife. 
Presently he spoke in a stronger voice, though still very 
gently. 

“T am Nicholas Alexandrovitch, a wandering beggar. I 
think I am dying, so that I shall not trouble you long. What 
is the name of this village ?” 

It was Katinka who answered. The child’s father and 
mother seemed speechless and stricken by fear. 

“Tt is Lubimovka. We are all dying. Soon there will be 
no food for any one. Then we shall die quickly.” 

“My poor people!” said the man, with a pitiful groan. 
“My poor Russia! My poor little ones !” 

Tears came into his eyes and rolled slowly down his hag- 
gard cheeks until they touched his beard. 


22 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“If we are very careful,” said Katinka, “we have enough 
‘bread to keep us alive for three or four weeks. And father 
is going to kill the little cow so that we shall have meat 
‘until the winter. After that, of course, we shall have to 
die.” | 

She spoke simply, with the gravity of a child to a grown- 
up friend who understands. Then she went to the cupboard 
again and brought out the piece of bread which had been 
put aside for her evening meal. It was the bread made of 
straw and leaves and husks which I saw in that village in 
the year of famine. 

“Eat, Little Father,’ she said to the stranger. 

He shook his head and smiled. 

“T have come here to die, not to eat your bread, my little 
one.” 

“If you do not eat it I shall cry,” said Katinka. 

He shook his head again, and said: “‘No, no, I am not 
hungry.” 

But when Katinka burst into tears he took a small portion 
of her bread and ate it, and said: “If men were as kind as 
little children, this world would be like heaven.” 

“Gospodin,”’ said Michael, moistening his lips and speak- 
ing hoarsely, “all that we have, which is little, we shall be 
glad to share with you.” 

“T thank you, tavarish,’ answered the man, using that 
word which means “comrade,” and replaces all other titles 
in Russia, by order of the Bolsheviks. 


That was the beginning of this legend or myth about the 
coming of the Tsar to Lubimovka. It was that evening 
after dark, when the man who called himself Nicholas Alex- 
androvitch was sleeping on the floor beside the stove, stir- 
ring sometimes in his dreams, that Michael took his lantern 
and walked through the falling snow to the house where 
young Sacha the poet lived with his mother and his crippled 
sister Lydia. Before the revolution, this family had been 
rich, with a house in Moscow; but Sacha’s father, who was 
an officer of the old army, had been killed in the war, and 


The Stranger in the Village 20 


the house in Moscow and all their wealth had been taken 
by the Bolsheviks, and now Sacha and his mother and his 
crippled sister were as poor as all the others in Lubimovka. 
But Sacha was a great reader of books, and wrote poetry; 
and, although no more than nineteen years of age, played 
a man’s part in the village, and was the only one who was 
not afraid of Vladimir, the Soviet agent, or of Braunberg 
the Jew. He was the secretary of the village council, and 
had been put in prison for a time for resisting the requisition 
of grain and potatoes by the Red Army after the failure 
of the harvest. There was not a peasant in Lubimovka who 
did not regard this young man with hero-worship, because 
he had defied the Red soldiers for their sake. It was partly 
for that reason that Michael went round to his house to tell 
him of the stranger who had come. But it was also because 
Sacha had once lived in Moscow. Assuredly he must have 
seen the Tsar, the Little Father, as he was called then. He 
would be able to say whether this man who wore a flaming 
star under his vest was, or was not, the Emperor of all the 
Russias. Michael had hardly a doubt about it. But Sacha 
would know. 

The young man was reading aloud by the dim light of a 
wax candle when Michael stood inside the door, with his 
fur cap in his hand and a thin mantle of snow on his leather 
tunic. Lydia, the crippled sister, lay on a couch by the stove, 
and Michael could see her shining eyes in a white face, 
though the candlelight hardly reached her. Sacha’s mother 
sat on the other side of the room with bowed head and her 
hands in her lap—a black figure. 

Sacha was reading something from a big book. It was 
something about passing from death to life, where there 
would be no hunger, but eternal joy and beauty. Then 
he raised his head as Michael opened the door, and the cold 
wind made his candle gutter. 

“TI wish to speak with you, Sacha,’ said Michael. 

Sacha pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen over his 
forehead, and shielded the candle with his hands. 

“What is it, Michael? Is it bad news you bring through 
the snow?” 


24 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“Tt is strange news,” said Michael. “It is hard to believe 
one’s own eyes.” 

“What have you seen?” asked Sacha. : 

Michael was slow in answering. He was a shy man, and 
perhaps these people would laugh at him if he told them 
something which was hard to believe. Perhaps also it would 
not be safe to tell any one but Sacha. Women could not 
keep a secret. And this was a secret which might lead to 
trouble. They might all be shot by the Soviet Government 
if it leaked out. 

“Pardon me,” said Michael, “but I wish to tell you alone, 
Sacha. If you will step outside the door——” 

“No, no,” said Sacha, “it is better in this warm room. 
You need not be afraid of my mother and sister.” 

“Tam afraid of what I have to tell you,” said Michael. 

It was some time before he could bring himself to tell 
these people. Sacha thought his cow had died. And little 
Lydia, the crippled girl, prayed that typhus had not stricken 
his household. There was no sound in the room except a 
kind of gasp when at last he told his tale. 

“A stranger has come to the village. He fell with weak- 
ness at my door. It was my little girl who saw his likeness, 
and my wife who found a jewelled star beneath his vest. 
He is no common man. I verily believe, as God hears me, 
that it is the man whom we used to call our Little Father, 
the Tsar of Russia, whom all men believe to be dead.” 

The people in the room did not laugh at him. He was 
glad of that. But they stared at him silently. He could see 
their eyes upon him beyond the radiance of the candlelight. 

It was Sacha who spoke first. 

“Have you gone mad, Michael Michaelovitch ?” 

Michael answered with humility. 

“It is possible that I have gone a little mad, Sacha. In 
this time of hunger and death it is hard to keep one’s wits. 
But I believe that the Tsar Nicholas is now sleeping on the 
floor below my stove, and that my wife Anna is on her knees 
beside him, and that my little daughter Katinka was led by 
God to see his likeness.” 

They would not believe him. And yet they did not laugh 


The Stranger in the Village 25 


at him. It seemed to Michael that they were a little fright- 
ened, as people who listen to a tale of ghosts, not believing, 
but afraid when the wind howls outside, and when the door 
blows open. Sacha’s face had gone very white, and his crip- 
pled sister sat up on her couch with burning eyes. 

“Do not tell this tale to others in the village,” said Sacha. 
“Vladimir will report it to Moscow. You will be shot if they 
hear it there, Michael.” 

It was on the next morning that Sacha went round to 
Michael’s house. The stranger was sitting by the stove with 
Katinka on his lap. He was telling her a story of old Rus- 
sian history, and she had her arm about his neck, and her 
thin little face against his bearded cheek. Michael stood 
watching them from the doorway of the inner room, and 
Anna, his wife, was scrubbing the floor, and muttering 
prayers as she worked. 

Sacha stood on the threshold and called out to Michael, 
while his eyes rested on the stranger’s face. 

“Have you killed the little cow, Michael ?” 

“T shall kill it directly,” said Michael. 

The stranger looked at Sacha and smiled, and said: “Good 
morning, comrade. You see, I have found a friend in 
Lubimovka.” 

“From what part do you come?” asked Sacha. 

“I have been wandering,” answered the man. “In spite 
of the famine people have given me a share of their bread. 
After all, the charity of man is greater than cruelty. That 
is the hope of the world—our only hope.” 

“Here,” said Sacha, “we wait for certain death. There 
is no hope this side of the grave.” 

“T shall be glad to die here,” answered the stranger ; “‘per- 
haps I have reached the end of my journey!’ 

“T am young,” said Sacha; “I do not wish to die.” 

He spoke harshly, and all the time his eyes were fixed on 
the stranger’s face. 

“Tt is hard for youth,” said the stranger, very gently. 
“The old men of the world have betrayed them. It was the 
wickedness of the old men that made the war, and led to 
the agony and evil that followed in the wake of war. The 


26 Little Novels of Nowadays 


sins of the fathers are visited on the children. How sad and 
pitiful is that! I am one of the old men whose ignorance 
and folly must be paid for by the sacrifice of youth. And 
yet Katinka here forgives me. Perhaps God will forgive, 
knowing my weakness and how I was betrayed.” 

Sacha stood there with a grave face, and one lock of hair 
falling over his forehead. Suddenly, as though something 
had broken in his spirit, he turned his head away and wept, 
and then stumbled forward and went down on one knee 
before the stranger, and took his hand, and said: ““My Lord, 
my Lord!” 

The man who called himself Nicholas Alexandrovitch 
was startled, and perhaps frightened, by this homage of the 
boy. He put little Katinka off his lap and stood up, lean- 
ing against the tall stove because of his weakness, and 
touched Sacha’s head with his right hand. 

“Do not call me that!’ he said: “I am your comrade. I 
am a poor beggar living on the charity of starving folk. I 
am the lowest of the low in this Empire of misery and 
hunger and death. I am less lucky than those who have 
died more quickly. I am the scapegoat laden with the sins 
of Russia.” 


It must be remembered that this boy, Sacha, was weak- 
ened by hunger, like all men in the villages of the Volga 
valley, and who, before then, had lived through the terror 
of the revolution, and had seen Russia brought to ruin and 
anarchy, and all its old civilisation overthrown. [I think that 
is one explanation why not only Sacha, but other people in 
Lubimovka, found it easy to believe that the bearded 
stranger who had come among them was the man who had 
been their Tsar. They were in an emotional, overwrought 
state. The womenfolk, and even many of the men, had been 
praying for some miracle to happen by God’s grace to save 
them from starvation. There were some who believed that 
war, famine and pestilence which had come upon the world 
was a presage of the second coming of Christ. Mingled 
with the Christian faith and most wonderful resignation of 
these peasants, all sorts of fanaticisms, credulities, supersti- 


The Stranger in the Village IH 


tions, cropped up in those villages in the famine belt and 
beyond. ‘The presence, therefore, of a man bearing a re- 
markable likeness—no doubt—to the Tsar Nicholas, and 
speaking in terms of mysticism and allegory, and certainly 
of the old noble rank, whoever he was, did not need more 
than a suggestion—which the child Katinka had supplied— 
to convince these people that he was truly the former ruler 
of Russia, who had come among them in the guise of a 
beggar. That is my theory, though I confess Sacha ridicules 
it and swears that he recognised beyond all doubt the Tsar 
himself, whom he had seen as a child in the palace of the 
Kremlin. 

“How beyond all doubt?” I asked him, and he said: “Be- 
cause below his left ear there was a little mole which I had 
remarked when my father took me to the palace and held 
me up for the Tsar to bless.” 

After that first meeting Sacha went round often to 
Michael’s house, in order to gaze at the stranger with rev- 
erent eyes and listen to his tales to Katinka—he knew all 
the legends of Russian history—and his simple talk to the 
child’s parents. He had a habit of sighing deeply in the 
midst of his tales about the old saints and heroes, and some- 
times fell into a kind of trancelike silence, when the tears 
dropped slowly from his eyes and fell in his beard. At 
those times no one dared to interrupt his thoughts, and pres- 
ently he would seem to wake with a start and smile at Ka- 
tinka, and say: “Where was I in that tale?” 

Always at meal times he would eat only the tiniest morsel 
of that poor bread which they made out of apple leaves and 
straw, and even when the little cow was killed at last, he 
would eat none of its meat, but only dipped his bread in 
the gravy. It was wonderful that he could keep alive on 
such little food, and although the weakness of his body was 
visible, he still had strength enough to walk a little, unlike 
other men in the village—the blacksmith among them—who 
lay on their beds above the stoves hardly able to-lift a hand 
because of their long hunger. 

Sacha’s visits to Michael’s house became a mystery to 
Sonia the schoolmistress, and it was her dear jealousy which 


28 Little Novels of Nowadays 


caused this boy to break the secrecy which he had imposed 
upon his own lips as well as upon his mother and sister. 
How could he keep this secret from her when they had 
none other in the world? , 

It was six months before the famine that they had dis- 
covered their love, and found it gave them not only joy, so 
that all the misery of Russia under Bolshevik rule did not 
touch them any more, but also courage to face all else that 
might happen, and even death itself. All Sacha’s poetry 
was written for Sonia. All the knowledge she had from the 
books she read after her drudgery in the little schoolhouse, 
was poured into the letters she wrote him every day, though 
they were never posted, but slipped into his pocket between 
their embraces. Together they discussed all the problems 
of life and death and eternity, and because of the time in 
which they lived, the philosophy of this boy and girl was 
touched with the grim knowledge of man’s cruelty, and the 
failure of all men’s dreams of liberty and progress. Yet 
with the faith and hope of youth they believed in the future 
of Russia after this time of agony, in its regeneration and 
greatness. 

“We shan’t live to see it, my dear,” said Sacha many 
times, but was comforted when Sonia touched his hand and 
said: “Not in the body, but in the spirit, my comrade.” 

When the famine began, Sacha tightened his belt and 
hoarded up some of his own rations so that Sonia might 
not starve. But then he found that she was already starving 
herself by saving her rations for him. Only by entreaties 
and quarrels could they agree to eat enough to keep them- 
selves alive so long as any food remained. This love story 
in the heart of the famine seemed to me one of the most 
touching and pitiful tales I have heard, and it was Sacha 
himself who told me, with that lack of self-consciousness 
and that simplicity which are the source of charm in Rus- 
sian character. 

It was after the fourth night that Sonia came round to 
Sacha’s house. They met in the street, there, with a slight 
snow falling on them so that their fur caps were whitened. 

He saw by her face that the girl had been weeping, and 


The Stranger in the Village 29 


his heart felt a stab of guiltiness. Yet she smiled at him 
and spoke lightly. 

“You look older since I last saw you, Sacha. Is it four 
nights or four years since we met?” 

He stared down at his feet in the snow, afraid to meet 
her candid eyes. Yet after that moment of thought he 
knew that he must tell her the secret that had kept him 
away from her, or be unloyal to their love. 

“Sonia,” he said, “it is dangerous to know what I am 
going to tell you. It is the most perilous secret in Russia. 
to-day, though its secrets are full of terror for those who 
keep them.” 

“Do not tell me that you have lost your love for me,’ 
she answered. “I could bear any secret but that.” 

He put his arm round her shoulder. 

“Not that. That is impossible. .But what I have to 
tell you is hardly less incredible. So unbelievable that even 
now I dare not tell you lest you should think me mad.” 

“What you tell me, I believe,” she said, simply and 
gravely. 

He told: her then, 

“A stranger has come to this village. He is a man whom 
all of us believed to be dead. A man betrayed by all his 
friends, and hated by all the world. He would be killed 
like a rat if they found him now, though he is innocent of 
all evil, I am certain.” 

“Ts it Christ that has risen again?” asked Sonia, with a 
strange look at Sacha. 

He was profoundly startled by those words. He, too, 
had wondered if Christ would come to Lubimovka before 
the ending of the world. 

“Not that,” he said. “But the stranger who has come was 
the ruler of all our people, and loved them, though he was 
powerless to help them. In Michael’s house, lying on the 
boards, half dead with hunger, is he who was the Tsar. I 
have seen him and talked with him. I have no doubt.” 

“And you are not mad?” asked Sonia. 

eNom leaminot mad... 

“Then I believe,” she said. 


30 Little Novels of Nowadays : 


Sacha led her into his house, and took off her shawl after 
the door was closed, and spoke to his mother and sister. 

“T have told Sonia, and she believes.” 

“Then there is one more to be hanged when the Soviet 
knows,” said Lydia, his crippled sister, and her voice had a 
sharp fear in it. 

While they were talking in the darkness, without even 
one candle, because there was no more fat or oil, there was 
a knock at the door. 

“Who is there?” called Sacha sharply, and from outside 
a quiet voice answered: 

“Nicholas Alexandrovitch, the beggar.” 

Sacha opened the door, and across the threshold came the 
bearded man who wore a hidden star under his ragged vest. 
He carried Michael’s lantern, and swayed a little as he stood | 
on the threshold. 

“My dear friends,” he said, “I come for the sake of my 
little comrade, Katinka. She is stricken with typhus, and 
her mother asks for Sonia the schoolmistress, who saved 
the child of Boris the blacksmith.” 

Sonia moved across the room until she was touched with 
the rays of the lantern shining across the threshold. 

“Lam Sonia,” she/said’ ol will go* to) the child. 

“It is brave of you,” said the man with the lantern. “The 
women of Russia have the spirit of Christ in their hearts. 
God will forgive the sins of their men after this time of 
punishment.” 

Sacha’s mother, who had once been a lady of ite Imperial 
Court in Moscow, though now she was like a gipsy, with 
dirty hands because Sher did rough work and there was no 
soap in Lubimovka, rose from her chair and faltered across 
the room, with her dark eyes staring at the man with the 
lantern. Then she uttered a shrill cry and fell to her knees 
before the stranger, and clasped his hands and wept over 
them. 

“Do not kneel before me,” he said. ‘“‘IJ am Nicholas the 
beggar. An outcast and a sinner.” 

He beckoned to Sonia, and said: “Come, for my little 
comrade, Katinka, is very ill.” 


The Stranger in the Village 31 


He held the lantern while she put on her shawl again, and 
led her out into the snow. 

Sacha bent over his mother, and raised her from the floor. 

“It is true, then?’ he asked, and she said: “It is his face 
and voice.” 

It was through Anna, the wife of Michael, that the story 
was spread in Lubimovka. In her distraction because of 
Katinka’s fever she talked wildly to her neighbours, and 
from cottage to cottage there passed the whisper that the 
stranger in the village was the man whom the world believed 
to be dead. Little groups of peasants gathered outside 
Michael’s house, where Katinka lay tossing in her little bed 
by the stove, and they peered through the windows for a 
glimpse of the stranger who sat by the side of the child 
whom he called his little comrade. They whispered together, 
and one old woman said: “Perhaps he has come to rescue 
us from famine. God will listen to his prayers.” 

Another said: “He has but to touch the child, and she 
will be well.” 

Others said: “It is certainly the Little Father. But he 
will be taken and killed if we do not keep his secret.” 

It was a bad way of keeping a secret, this gathering out- 
side Michael’s house. Vladimir, the Soviet agent, saw them 
there and questioned them. One toothless old woman who 
hated him spat on the ground and said: “All you Bolshevik 
devils will soon be hanged as you deserve. Our Tsar is 
back again.” | 

“What does the old fool say?’ asked Vladimir, with a 
black look. He was not haggard and thin like the other 
men in Lubimovka. As the Soviet agent he had first share 
of food sent down from Moscow at the beginning of the 
famine. It was believed that he had hoarded many sacks 
of potatoes which belonged to the commune. He was feared 
as well as hated, because he was in the pay of the Cheka— 
the secret police—and could send people to their death if 
he had a grudge against them. 

Now they tried to cover up the words of the old woman, 
Kakoshka. 

“She has lost her wits with her last tooth!” 


SZ Little Novels of Nowadays 


“She is the mother of imbeciles!” 

But another woman in the crowd shouted at Vladimir. 

“Tt is true what she says. Our Little Father has come to 
Lubimovka. Lenin had better look out for himself, and all 
his murderers.” 

Vladimir scowled round on the peasants. 

“You people have all gone daft. If you weren’t all 
starving to death, J would have you sent to the prisons in 
Moscow.” 

He strode away down the village, but he must have made 
it his business to find out more about the story, for that 
night he came to Michael’s house with Braunberg the Jew, 
and the girl Sara. They were the only Communists in 
Lubimovka, where the peasants had no love for that phi- 
losophy. 

Sonia was there, mixing some medicine for the child Ka- 
tinka, whose thin little face was scarlet as she lay uncon- 
scious. Michael and his wife were sitting at their bare 
board weeping, with their heads on their arms, because their 
child was very near death. At the side of the stove the 
bearded stranger sat with his hands clasped on his knees 
and pity in his eyes as he watched Katinka. 

Vladimir and his two companions came in noisily, without 
knocking at the door. 

Michael raised his head and said: ‘““What do you want, 
tavarish?” 

“T want to see the stranger in your house,” said Vladimir. 

“IT am here,” said the man who called himself Nicholas 
Alexandrovitch. 

Vladimir stared at him and spoke roughly: 

“What’s your name? Who are you?” 

“T am Nicholas, a wandering beggar.” 

“Where do you come from?” 

The bearded man smiled, and raised his hand towards the 
west. 

“T have been through many villages of Russia, always 
wandering in search of death. But I have not found it yet.” 

Vladimir laughed harshly. 


The Stranger in the Village Go 


“It’s easy to find in Russia, to most men. Death! This 
village stinks with it.” 

“And this house,’ said Sara, the daughter of the Jew. 
“T do not like the smell of typhus. Let’s get out of here, 
Viadimir. There is no harm in this man.” 

Vladimir stared at the stranger again. 

“You had better get on with your wandering, old father,” 
he said. “The sooner you’re out of Lubimovka the better 
for you, or you'll find death sooner than you expect. There 
are crazy folk here who take you for the dead Tsar. It is 
not good to be taken for a ghost. It leads to trouble.” 

“That is true,” said the man. “I will go away. I do not 
wish to lead the people into trouble. They have had 
enough.” 

Vladimir spoke less harshly. 

“Well, I will give you a day or two. It’s not your fault, 
old man, that the people here are daft with hunger and 
misery. Not their fault either, poor wretches.” 

Suddenly Sonia drew back from Katinka’s bedside and 
gave a little cry. But a louder cry came from Anna, the 
mother of the child. She sprang up from her chair by the 
table and raised both hands above her head, and then fell 
with a piercing cry by the side of Katinka’s little bed. 

Nicholas the beggar rose also from his chair and crossed 
himself. Then he put his hand on the shoulder of Michael 
and said: “It is well with the child. She is dead. God is 
merciful.” 

“Let us get out of here,” said Sara the Jewess. 

Vladimir and Braunberg and the woman were quick to 
get away from this house into which death had come so 
suddenly. 

That evening when Sacha came round to take Sonia back 
to her house, he found only Nicholas the beggar in the front 
room. Little Katinka had been carried into the inner room, 
and Michael and Anna were praying with Sonia the school- 
mistress. 

The stranger was pacing up and down with his hands 
clasped behind his back. When he saw Sacha cross the 


34 Little Novels of Nowadays 


threshold he smiled, and put his fingers to his lips for 
silence. 

“My little comrade, has gone ahead of me,” he said in a 
quiet voice. “So many of my comrades have gone before 
me! I feel lonely as I wander.” 

“My Lord,” said Sacha, “when is there going to be an 
end of all this misery? When are you coming back again 
so that Russia may be saved?” 

“It is not through me that Russia can be saved,” said the 
man. “Russia must save herself, after much agony and 
punishment for sin. We are being punished. Our poor 
Russia is suffering for the sins of our fathers. But her 
soul lives in these peasant folk. It is by their faith and 
charity that Russia will be saved.” 

“One day you will come back,” said Sacha, with a kind 
of sob. 

The bearded man shook his head. 

“My end is near at hand. The end of my journey is 
close upon me. I shall be glad to rest at last.” 

Sacha has not told me all that was spoken between them 
that night. There are some things that he keeps secret still, 
but it seems that the stranger spoke in a kind of vision of 
the future that would come to Russia, and of a splendid 
destiny. Then, later, he put his hand below his ragged vest 
and pulled out the jewelled star, and slipped the silver chain 
over his head and gave the star to Sacha. 

“This is all the wealth I have left in the world,” he said. 
“I kept it as a holy relic, for it belonged to my ancestors 
and to one dear saint. But it is better to buy some food 
with it for these poor people here. If you can get as far as 
Moscow, it is likely that you could¢sell it for some grain. 
There are people still who covet such glittering stones.” 

“Moscow is a world away,” said Sacha. “I could not get 
there or come back again.” 

“Then my star is worthless,” said Nicholas, and his head 
drooped a little. 

But he would not take it back again, and that night when 
Sacha went back with Sonia, he carried the star in his breast 
pocket and it seemed to burn above his heart. 


The Stranger in the Village 35 


There was heavy snow next day, and Sacha bent his head 
to the storm when early in the morning he trudged round 
to Michael’s house. All through the night he had lain 
awake, thinking of the star which lay under his pillow and - 
of the man who had given it into his keeping. He had de- 
termined to make the journey to Moscow for the sake of 
the people of Lubimovka. If he could sell the star he might 
bring back food enough to save many lives. But before 
going he wanted to see its owner again, so that he might — 
take a message from him to people in Moscow who believed 
him to be dead. The boy was on fire with faith and hope, 
so that he did not feel the coldness of the snow as it fell in 
flakes upon his face. He had an absolute faith that this man 
in Michael’s house was he who had been Tsar of All the 
Russians, and Sacha was persuaded that it was a miracle 
which might lead Russia out of the depths and save her 
people. 

On the threshold of Michael’s house he saw the little 
coffin of Katinka being carried out on her father’s shoulders. 
Behind, with her shawl over her face and shoulders, walked 
the poor wife Anna, and some peasant women who were 
wailing with her. Last of all came Sonia, weeping. 

Sacha went up to the girl whom he loved before any in 
the world, and touched her on the arm. 

“Where is the stranger?” he asked. 

“He has gone,” said Sonia. “He went away just now, 
after kissing Katinka before her coffin was closed. See, 
there are his footsteps in the snow.” 

Sacha gave a queer cry. 

“T must follow him! I must speak with him again.” 

“The snow will hide his footsteps,” said Sonia. “You 
will never follow his track.” 

But Sacha left her and hurried over the snow, where, very 
clearly at first, were the footmarks in the snow of a man 
with a long stride. They led up the village street to the 
gate in the stockade on the northern side, and then beyond 
to the flat, open country, until they disappeared beneath the 
snow which was falling thickly now. Sacha stumbled for- 
ward through the snow, which a light wind blew upon his 


36 Little Novels of Nowadays 


breast and cap. He could hardly see a yard ahead, and he 
called out many times: “My Lord! My Lord!” But no 
voice answered him. The stranger had disappeared into 
that white world of swirling flakes. Presently Sacha stood 
still, and then retraced his steps with his head bent. 
Nicholas Alexandrovitch had gone on his journey again 
in search of death, and in Lubimovka he was not seen again. 


Sacha kept the star, which was the only proof of a visit 
which otherwise might have seemed a dream. There was 
no need to go to Moscow to barter it for bread and potatoes, 
because the world had heard at last the cry of a starving 
people, and help came from England and the United States 
after many had died in Lubimovka and all the villages of 
the Volga valley.. It was at that time, and with some 
American Relief officers, that I met Sacha and Sonia and 
heard their strange tale of the man with the star. It was 
Sonia the schoolmistress who was put in charge of the first 
soup kitchen, and it was good to see her joy when the chil- 
dren were fed. 

“If only little Katinka could be here!” she murmured, and 
then said some words which I could not understand. 

“It was the Little Father who brought us this good luck. 
God heard his prayers for the Russian people.” 

“Whom do you call the Little Father?’ I asked, and it 
was then, from this girl and from Sacha, who spoke good 
English, that I heard the story I have now written. It 
seemed to me then as it seems to me now—utterly fantastic. 
Not for a moment do I believe that it was the Tsar of All 
the Russias who came to Lubimovka as a wandering beggar. 
Doubtless it was some Russian gentleman of the old régime, 
perhaps with some distant touch of kinship with the Tsar 
which would account for his likeness. 

But neither Sacha nor Sonia, nor any of the people of 
Lubimovka, will listen to any theory of that kind. It was 
the Tsar himself, they say, and perhaps a hundred years 
hence this legend will still be believed in the Volga valley, 
where already the jewelled star is kept as a relic and a proof 
of what is unbelievable. 


II: MISS SMITH OF SMYRNA 


HEN I read in the newspapers that the Turks had 

entered Smyrna and had celebrated their victory by 
burning the Christian quarters and massacring men, women 
and children, according to the way of Islam, I thought of 
certain people whom I had met there a year before, and 
wondered what agony they had suffered before their death, 
or what chance of escape had been theirs. 

There was Lieutenant Mazarakis, of the headquarters staff 
of the Greek army, who had been extremely hospitable to 
me and taken me to dinner several times at his villa, a mile 
or more outside the city beyond the Turkish quarter. He 
had introduced me to his wife, a beautiful woman—rather 
too plump perhaps—approaching middle age, with two boys 
and two girls, ranging from fourteen years to five or six, 
adorably pretty, with their pale faces and black eyes, and 
charming in their behaviour. The eldest girl, I remember, 
sang little songs with her mother, in Greek and French; 
and Lieutenant Mazarakis, nervously polite to me, desper- 
ately anxious to make a good impression on an Englishman 
who, as a writing man, might help the claims of Greece by 
friendly propaganda, was delighted by my sincere enjoyment 
of his family entertainment. 

It was when he was out of the room for a moment, 
fetching another bottle of sweet Greek wine, that his wife 
spoke to me in English, which the children did not under- 
stand. Turning round on her music stool she asked me a 
question with an anxiety that revealed a great fear in her 
soul. 

“Do you think my children are safe here?” After a mo- 
ment’s pause she seemed to explain her fear. “My husband 
is so brave that he ignores all danger, but I am a coward 
for my little ones. Is Smyrna safe from the Turk?” 

I was startled and a little confused. Even while she had 

37 


38 Little Novels of Nowadays 


been singing a French ballad, with her eldest girl’s hand on 
her shoulder, and two babies on the floor by her side, and a 
small boy like a Greek statuette sitting back in an armchair 
listening and watching with grave eyes—a beautiful group 
as I remember them now—I had been chilled by a subcon- 
scious sense of fear and some foreboding of horror. 

The Greek army held a line across Asia Minor, thirty 
miles inland from Smyrna. The Greek commander in chief, 
whom I had seen that morning in his headquarters on the 
sea front—an enormously fat old gentleman in a tight uni- 
form with golden epaulettes and a string of decorations— 
had expressed his confidence not only in the strength of his 
line but in the ability of his troops to sweep the Turks before 
them. | 
“IT have merely to give the order,” he said, touching a 
piece of paper with his fat forefinger, “and the Greek army 
will advance as though on parade.” He reiterated that 
phrase with sonorous satisfaction. “As though on parade, 
sir! It is only international politics—the intrigues of France 
and Italy, who support the Turkish Nationalists against the 
just claims of Greece—which prevents the immediate tri- 
umph of our arms.” 

A band was playing selections from Carmen outside the 
windows while the commander in chief gave me this audi- 
ence. Everything seemed very merry and bright along the 
sea front of Smyrna, where the hot sunlight was dazzling 
on the white marble fronts of the rich Armenian quarter. 
Young staff officers of the Greek army, in waisted uniforms, 
with highly polished boots, laughed and chatted in the ante- 
room. A Greek gunboat—the Imbros—painted white, lay 
off the quay side, between a British battleship and an Ameri- 
can cruiser. Smyrna seemed very safe under Greek domi-. 
nation. 

But behind the Turkish lines, thirty miles away, were 
resolute men, under a leader named Mustapha Kemal, who 
was a great diplomatist and a great soldier. He had, as I 
had seen in Moscow and Petrograd, agents accredited to 
Soviet Russia, obtaining money, arms and ammunition. His 
army was growing in power and discipline and fanatical 


Miss Smith of Smyrna 39 


faith. Every Turk in Constantinople was his supporter and 
fellow conspirator against the orders of a Sultan who was 
but the puppet and mouthpiece, they believed, of the Allied 
Powers. Mustapha Kemal had vowed to take Smyrna and 
to raise the whole Mohammedan world until the Crescent 
flew above its harbour. 

I had no faith in the character and strength of the Greek 
army, in spite of the cheery optimism of the fat old gentle- 
man in the golden epaulettes. I was conscious, while he 
spoke, of a sinister shadow lying beyond that sunlight in the 
port of Smyrna, and of a menace not made less perilous by 
selections from Carmen played by a Greek band outside 
headquarters. 

So when the comely wife of Lieutenant Mazarakis turned 
to me and asked her question with immense fear in her 
eyes, I found it difficult to answer. I am thankful now that 
I was truthful, and not insincere for her husband’s sake. 

“T would not keep women or children here if I were a 
Greek officer who could send them away.” 

At that moment her husband came back with his bottle 
of sweet resinous wine. I think he saw the look of anguish 
in his wife’s eyes, though she tried to hide it by turning to 
her music again. | 

“My wife is a little timid,” he said, smiling and putting 
his hand on her shoulder. ‘Perhaps she has been telling 
you that she feels rather nervous in Smyrna? I hope you 
reassured her. The alternative is Athens, and I cannot bear 
to be separated from wife and bairns while I am stationed 
here, perhaps for years.” 

“Athens is a charming place,” I answered. “The most 
beautiful little city, I thinks in all Europe. I should feel 
happy if my family were there—if I were you.” 

A slight shadow crossed his face—a look of vexation, 
which he hid rapidly by a gay laugh. 

“T thought I had convinced you that we hold Smyrna as 
securely as the English have London. And though I love 
Athens, you must admit that Smyrna is not without beauty, 
Even this villa is pretty good for a billet in time of war.” 

He glanced round the drawing-room, elegantly furnished 


40 Little Novels of Nowadays 


by its former owner and improved by Lieutenant Mazarakis, 
who had brought from Athens some of his own household 
treasures—ancient statuettes of Hermes and Aphrodite, 
found by himself in Thrace; some French paintings, some 
exquisite rugs and hangings. 

I did not argue with him. I could not tell him candidly 
that I had no faith at all in the power of the Greek army 
to hold Smyrna. His flamboyant patriotism, his passionate 
hope that the spirit of ancient Greece had reawakened in 
his race after more than a thousand years of sleep made 
all argument futile. 

I merely smiled and raised my glass when he poured out 
some of his sweet wine, and drank to the eternal friendship 
between Greece and England. Then I said farewell, and 
going out into the garden looked back and raised my hat to 
this Greek family gathered in the doorway, through which 
a yellow light came into the darkness. Mazarakis was by 
the side of his wife, and she stood surrounded by her four 
children—the two little ones holding her skirt, the eldest 
girl with her arm round her mother’s waist, the small boy 
leaning his sleepy head against her arm. I shall always 
remember them like that; but the remembrance is darkened 
by the thought of that night of horror when the Turks came 
down to Smyrna and bayoneted women and children and 
tossed their bodies into the flaming bonfires of their houses. 

I wonder most what happened in those last hours to Miss 
Smith. In Athens and Constantinople and Mytilene, and 
other places of the Near East, I had heard vaguely of this 
lady, always under the title of “Miss Smith of Smyrna,” as 
though she owned the place, or at least governed it. I had 
no notion whether she was young or old, ugly or beautiful, 
but whenever her name was mentioned in casual conversa- 
tion by British naval officers, commercial travellers, army 
men, newspaper correspondents and others whom chance 
had taken to Asia Minor, it was always spoken with a smile 
of admiration. 

“TI wonder what my aunt thinks of the situation,” said a 
friend of mine—young Gerald Tuck, flag lieutenant of 
H.M.S. Dragon—as we sat one day in the Pera Palace 


3 


Miss Smith of Smyrna 41 


Hotel watching the parade of Armenians, Russians and 
Turks outside the windows, while we sipped cocktails and 
discussed the pro-Greek policy of the British Government, 
the troubles of “Tino,” and pro-Turk activities of France 
and Italy. 

“Why should your aunt think anything about it?’ I asked, 
and he surprised me by his answer, spoken with a whim- 
sical smile. 

“Well, she happens to be Miss Smith of Smyrna!” 

“Who on earth is Miss Smith—apart from being your 
distinguished aunt?” I inquired. “You’re about the sixth 
man during the last week who has alluded to that mysterious 
lady as though she were equal in importance to the Sultan.” 

“More important, in a way,’ said Gerald; “though per- 
haps, as her unworthy nephew, I shouldn’t say so. The 
Sultan doesn’t count for anything with the real fellows at 
Angora. But Mustapha Kemal kisses the hand of my little 
old aunt, and there are lots of Turks who divide their rev- 
erence between the Prophet Mohammed and Miss Smith of 
Smyrna. Surprised you don’t know her, old man!” 

When I confessed my blank ignorance of her personality 
and prestige, Gerald Tuck gave me some enlightenment. 

In his slangy way he began by saying she was a regular 
old sport, and the pluckiest old thing in Asia Minor, but 
after these generalities he condescended to a few particu- 
lars. 

Miss Smith, it appeared, was the daughter of old Medi- 
terranean Smith, who, away back in the early Victorian 
days, had built up the biggest trade in the Near East— 
general merchandise, spices, rugs, every blessed thing, said 
Gerald Tuck, bought or sold between Venice and Persia. 
Half a century ago he had established a big store in the 
Grand Rue de Pera—I must have passed it a score of times 
—another in Frank Street, Smyrna; a third in Athens. 
When he died, some time in the ’80’s, he left a fortune of 
something like six millions to Miss Smith, and his business 
as a going concern. 

Her agents began to play tricks with the trade when the 
old man’s tiger eyes were asleep at last. Armenians, Greeks, 


42 Little Novels of Nowadays 


Turks and Israelites thought it an easy game with a young 
woman—she was young in those days—as their new boss. 
They soon found out their mistake. Miss Smith came to 
Constantinople with a riding whip in one hand and a small 
bag containing her wardrobe in the other. After an exami- 
nation of accounts she flogged her Armenian manager out 
of the stores—though she was a little wisp of a woman— 
and promoted a young Scot who had been one of the clerks. 

In Smyrna she used her money to build schools for 
Christians and Turks, paid her teachers well, and at un- 
expected times came down from her house in Burnabat— 
away in the hills—riding on a white camel, to See that the 
children were getting value for her money. A bit of a 
martinet? Well, a sort of Queen Victoria of the Near East. 
Nothing small about her, and with big ideas and a strong 
hand. Kind-hearted too, as I should find if I were ever hard 
up for hospitality in Smyrna. 

During the war she saved the Armenian and Greek com- 
munities in Smyrna from wholesale massacre, and had rid- 
den out alone to the Turkish High Command to dress them 
down for the damnable cruelty of their treatment of the 
Christian minorities. It was owing to her influence, partly, © 
anyhow, that the massacre ceased. They knew she was a 
friend of the Turks when they behaved decently. That was 
the secret of her pull. Old Mediterranean Smith had been 
pro-Turk up to his eyebrows, and had spent all his spare 
time hunting with Turkish pashas and entertaining them at 
Burnabat. As a young girl, Miss Smith had been playmate 
with their children—among them Mustapha Kemal—and had 
taught them tennis and other English games in her father’s 
gardens. She’d hunted with them too, killed bears with them 
up in the hills, shown more courage than any of them. They 
called her The Rose of Burnabat in those early days, and 
now the sons of her father’s old friends gave her the title of 
The Aunt of Islam. 

“Of course,” said Gerald Tuck, “you’ve heard about her 
pluck that day the Greek army landed at Smyrna, after the 
defeat of the Turks in the Great War?” 

“Not a word,” I told him. 


Miss Smith of Smyrna 43 


He laughed and said, “Don’t you read the papers?” and 
then agreed that I had been too busy writing chronicles else- 
where at that time of rapid history making. 

There was an unresisted entry of the Greeks when their 
transports arrived off Smyrna. The balconies of all the 
_ Armenian houses were crowded with men and women waving 
handkerchiefs as the first Greek soldiers put off in boats for 
the landing stage, and at the open windows of the Grand 
Hotel Splendid Palace—what a name !—were British officers, 
Greek ladies, British and American correspondents, Red 
Cross women, and so on, all merry and bright. The Turks 
of Smyrna came out of their quarters, without enthusiasm— 
poor devils—but without fear. Some of them, the ordinary 
porters of the quays, helped to draw in the Greek boats. 
Shrill volleys of cheers and the clapping of hands resounded 
from all the balconies as the Greeks landed. Then, before 
the eyes of excited women and in the gaze of Christian chil- 
dren, the Greek soldiers started bayoneting the Turks and 
flinging their bodies into the sea. It was most deliberate 
and foul murder. It happened so quickly that no action could 
be taken by the commanders of the British and American 
warships lying alongside the quays. It was a little old lady 
who took action first—Miss Smith, who had been standing 
on the steps of the Grand Hotel Splendid Palace. 

It was she who went down first, and alone among the mur- 
dering Greeks. She wore a white dust coat over her dress, 
and brown riding boots, as she had come riding into Smyrna 
on her old white camel, and she carried a little whip, which 
she slashed over the face of a Greek soldier as he advanced 
with a bayonet, already dripping blood, against a cowering 
Turk. 

The little old lady called out something in Greek sharply 
and harshly, and the man halted a moment, staring at her 
with surprised, sombre eyes. But then he gave a shout, and, 
raising his bayonet, advanced again towards his victim. Miss 
Smith stood between him and the Turk. She used her whip 
again, and slashed the man’s wrists so smartly that he gave 
a squeal of pain—he was only a boy—and dropped his rifle 
and bayonet. Miss Smith put her foot on his weapon and 


44. Little Novels of Nowadays 


boxed his ears with a resounding whack, first on one side, 
then on the other. 

A group of Turkish women and children rushed towards 
her and took shelter behind her, pursued by Greeks who saw 
red and were shouting and laughing in a beastlike way. They 
must have seen something in the character and spirit of Miss 
Smith which sobered them. She stood with the Turkish 
children clinging to her skirts, with one hand upraised, and 
though she was but a frail old woman, she seemed to have a 
terrific dignity at that time. She spoke to the Greeks in 
their own tongue, and, as Gerald Tuck said, gave them hell, 
so that they shrank back, ashamed. After that some Greek 
officers surrounded her and threatened to shoot their own men 
if they touched another Turk. 

“Pretty good for my revered aunt, don’t you think?” asked 
Gerald Tuck, after his narrative. 

“Perfectly splendid! I would like to get a glimpse of her.” 

“Nothing easier,’ he said. “If you don’t mind morning 
and evening prayers—she keeps up the Victorian tradition— 
you could put in a week with me at the old lady’s place when 
the Dragon goes to Smyrna, She’d be delighted, and it would 
do me a bit of good to have a companion who at least has 
the appearance of respectability. She regards me as a limb 
of Satan, destined to eternal perdition.” 

“Another proof of your aunt’s remarkable sagacity,” I 
observed, and had to stand him another drink to make 
amends. 

As it happened, I was first in Smyrna, and had been there 
a week before I met young Tuck, by chance, in the Turkish 
bazaars at the end of Frank Street—now a heap of cindered 
ruins. He looked very bright and breezy, as usual, in his 
white ducks and naval cap, as he sauntered through the nar- 
row passages with vaulted roofs, where old Turks sat cross- 
legged in their wooden booths, selling carpets from Ouchak 
and Angora, dried raisins and vegetables, strips of coloured 
silk for Turkish dresses, Sofrali linen, Manoussa cotton, 
German-made hardware, and all manner of rubbish from the 
East and West, drenched in the aroma of spices, moist sugar, 
oil and camels. 


Miss Smith of Smyrna 45 


What attracted my attention to young Tuck of the Royal 
Navy, was a sudden flutter among a group of Turkish ladies 
who were doing their afternoon shopping. They were very 
smartly dressed in frocks of blue, black and grey silk, short 
enough to show their neat ankles and high-heeled shoes— 
worthy of Paris—and their veils were drawn on one side, 
revealing their oval faces and large lustrous eyes, touched 
up, like all Turkish girls’ eyes, by the black pigment of kohl. 

I had glanced at them as they handled some rolls of silk in 
one of the booths, which a white-bearded old Turk spread 
out over his knees, and then I noticed one of them blush 
deeply and pull her veil over her face with a quick gesture. 
At that signal her companions veiled themselves as quickly, 
so that their faces were completely hidden. 

I wondered what had scared the birds, and turning round 
I saw Gerald Tuck, who, without any doubt at all, had given 
the glad eye to these Oriental beauties. 

“Hullo, young fellow!’ I said. “You'll get into trouble 
if you’re not more discreet with those naval optics of yours.” 
He grinned cheerily and gave me a punch in the ribs. 

“Hullo, old bean! Isn’t it a damn shame these little 
pigeons pop behind their curtains at the first sign of Christian 
homage? They don’t give a fellow a decent chance.” 

The Dragon had come to Smyrna, and Gerald had shore 
leave for a week, which he proposed to put in at his aunt’s 
place. Would I come and keep him company? Much as he 
admired the old lady, he confessed that a little of her went 
a long way. 

By a coincidence which Gerald Tuck did not find in the 
least remarkable, we met Miss Smith that afternoon at the 
house of Lieutenant Mazarakis, where I took him to tea. 
The boy was much taken with the children, whose pretty ways 
and broken English amused him vastly, and he entertained 
them so much by a series of conjuring tricks and other par- 
lour games that I was quite cut out in their affection. 
Madame Mazarakis fell in love with the boy, in a motherly 
way, and confided to me that the presence of an English 
battleship at Smyrna gave her a sense of reassurance. 

“Great Britain,” she said, “is on the side of the Greeks. 


46 Little Novels of Nowadays 


They will never allow the Turks to retake Smyrna. That 
thought gives me courage when I am most fearful.” 

I didn’t tell the lady that I had grave doubts whether 
Great Britain would give any help with armed force if the 
Greeks could not defend their own position. England, after 
her exhaustion in the Great War, was all for peace, and could 
not afford either money or men for any conflict in the Near 
Fast. 

It was after that conversation that Gerald Tuck gave an 
exclamation of surprise: 

“By all that’s wonderful, there’s my sacred aunt!” 

Through the window looking onto the road I saw the un- 
usual sight of two European ladies mounted on camels, one 
white and one brown, preceded by an old Turk sitting on the 
rump ofa little grey donkey. They all halted at the gate, and 
the Turk, getting off his donkey, helped one of the ladies to 
dismount from the white camel. She was a little old lady 
in a long white dust coat, carrying a parasol of black silk 
with a long fringe, and I knew at once that this must be Miss 
Smith of Smyrna. 

The excitement of the Mazarakis children, and their cry of 
“Mees Smeet!” proved my guess to be right. 

Madame Mazarakis rose and smoothed her dress nerv- 
ously. 

“A visit from Miss Smith!” she said in an awed voice, as 
though a queen had arrived without warning. 

Miss Smith advanced down the garden path, holding her 
parasol high—a stiff-backed little lady, with a thin, sharp- 
featured face, piercing grey eyes, and a most resolute look. 
Behind her came another lady, who had dismounted from the 
brown camel—a young woman in an English-looking frock 
of white drill, and at first glance, and second, amazingly 
good-looking. Not English, certainly, but with large, liquid 
eyes, dark brown, as I saw later in our acquaintance, and a 
pale oval face with fine features of an Eastern type. 

“By Jove,” said Gerald Tuck, drawing in his breath, “Miss 
Halid has developed into a choice blossom! Last time I 
saw her she was a lanky kid with rat-tail hair. How these 


{? 


young things grow! 


Miss Smith of Smyrna 47 


“Who is Miss Halid?” I inquired. 

It was not then, but afterwards, in Miss Smith’s house, 
that he told me that this girl had been adopted by Miss Smith 
—the waif of some Turkish woman who had been killed in 
a Greek massacre. Miss Smith had found the child alive 
among a heap of Turkish bodies in a half-burned village 
among the hills beyond Burnabat, and had brought her home, 
where she had stayed ever since. 

The old lady and this girl came into the drawing-room of 
Madame Mazarakis, and Miss Smith did not show the least 
astonishment when she was greeted by her nephew: 

“Hello, aunt! Going strong, I hope? I see you still ride 
the old white camel, like a lady in a circus!” 

She gave him her cheek to kiss, and though she spoke se- 
verely, had a glint of humour in her keen grey eyes: 

“Well, Gerald, I see your manners haven’t improved since 
we last met. As for your morals, no doubt the least said the 
better. In the navy there are more souls lost than drowned.” 

This epigram made young Gerald laugh boisterously, at the 
end of which ebullition of high spirits he introduced me as his 
very particular pal. 

The old lady gave me her little wrinkled, gipsy-like hand, on 
which I noticed some handsome diamond rings. 

She looked at me for a moment with her searching grey 
eyes, and didn’t seem certain of my respectability or general. 
character. 

“What are you doing in Smyrna?” she asked, rather snap- 
pishly. “Not one of Lloyd George’s agents, I hope, inciting 
the Greeks to claim an empire which will be the ruin of 
"em he 

I disclaimed all such responsibility and explained that I 
was a humble newspaper, man, taking a look around. 

“You may see more than you bargained for,” she answered 
grimly, and then, turning away from me, poked one finger 
into Gerald’s shoulder, and said, ‘““You haven’t said how-de- 
do to Halid, and the child looks as timid as a lamb in the 
presence of a wolf.” 

Gerald Tuck and the girl smiled’at each other and shook 
hands, but for once Gerald was shy and embarrassed—he 


48 Little Novels of Nowadays 


who gave the glad eye to every pretty girl whom he met on 
his way through the world! I think he was rather over- 
whelmed by the remarkable beauty of this young lady, whom 
he had remembered only as a child, on his last visit to Smyrna. 

Madame Mazarakis directed a little maid to arrange the 
tea tray and was nervous to the point of foolishness at what 
she seemed to consider the immense honour of this visit from 
Miss Smith. 

That old lady, I remember, ate an astonishing number of 
Greek buns, and directed most of her attention to the pretty 
children of our hostess, with whom she spoke in their own 
tongue. 

At that time I saw, as I thought and think still, the immense 
love and tenderness of this strange old woman for these chil- 
dren of rival races, Greek and Turk—it was clear to me now 
that Miss Halid was of Turkish origin—whom she tried to 
protect with equal benevolence from the outrageous cruel- 
ties that threatened them in Asia Minor, where she had made 
her home. The hard lines of her face softened as she spoke 
to them and caressed the dark head of the youngest boy, 
while her old-maid soul shone with mother love through those 
grey eyes, which had seemed to me like gimlets when she 
had taken her measure of me. 

“They’re adorable, these Greek mites,” she said to me 
presently, as the two babies sat in her lap and played with 
her diamond rings, fascinated by the sparkle of them. Then 
she gave a deep sigh, and a moment later asked, in her queer, 
abrupt way, an amazing question: “Have you any bowels of 
compassion, young man?” 

I murmured something about not having the instincts of a 
Nero, but she ignored my answer. 

“If you have any mission as a writer, beyond sensation- 
mongering,” she said, “you ought to do something to save 
another massacre of innocents.” 

I asked her, “What massacre ?” 

“Save for the mercy of God,” she said solemnly, “that 
preposterous treaty made by the Allies with Turkey will lead 
to a great tragedy hereabouts.” 

The word “Allies” seemed to irritate her as she spoke it. 


Miss Smith of Smyrna 49 


“Allies! A precious alliance between France and Great 
Britain—snarling at each other like cats and dogs! Up to 
their eyes in intrigue against each other from Syria to Con- 
stantinople !”’ 

When she rose presently she took one of Madame Mazara- 
kis’ hands in her own and caressed it a little. 

“You are a good mother, and a brave woman. But my 
wish for all Greek women and their little ones is for them 
to be far away from Smyrna.” 

Madame Mazarakis went white to the lips. 

“My husband ”” she stammered. 

“Yes,” said Miss Smith, “your husband believes that 
Greece will regain her old supremacy in Asia Minor. Tell 
him from me that he is a fool, like all his comrades.” 

She stooped to kiss the little ones, and then turned to me 
and gave me her hand. 

“You seem honest,” she said. “Come and stay with me a 
week, with that impudent nephew of mine. Your old bed- 
room is ready, Gerald.” 

“Excellent!” said Gerald. “Halid and I will have some 
tennis together.” 

He spoke in his usual light-hearted way, but I could see as 
plain as a pikestaff that he had gone all soppy under the gaze 
of that strangely beautiful girl with her long-lashed eyes and 
Oriental grace. 

Afterwards he said as much to me, when we walked back 
through the Turkish quarter to the Grand Hotel Splendid 
Palace, wedged for a while against the booths while a long 
caravan of brown, mangy camels, heavily laden with bales 
of merchandise, thrust their splay feet into the ruts and 
ambled past. 

“Gee whiz!” he cried, thrusting back his peaked cap. “That 
girl Halid makes me feel like Omar Khayyam! 


“*A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou 
Beside me singing in the Wilderness— 
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!’”’ 


He quoted the familiar old verse with an emotion that was 
half sham and half sincere, and was quite oblivious of the 


50 Little Novels of Nowadays 


looks of hatred that came from beneath the shaggy eye- 
brows of five old Turks, smoking their nargiles round a little 
brazier by the corner of the bazaar, at this young Christian 
dog in naval uniform with shining eyes and sonorous voice. 

So, by a little thread of circumstance such as Fate weaves 
about the lives of men, I found myself a guest with Gerald 
Tuck, in the country house of Miss Smith of Smyrna, away 
between the hills in the village of Burnabat. 

I remember the drive I took with Gerald to the old lady’s 
place, in a cart drawn by two Anatolian ponies—sturdy little 
fellows with long tails like Arab steeds—because it was the 
first time I had seen Smyrna from the heights of the Turkish 
quarter above the port, and now that it is all a blackened 
ruin with the charred bones of Greek women and children 
under its fallen stones, I look back in remembrance of the 
beauty of that view and its semblance of peace. 

We went out of the bazaar, with its crowded booths, 
through the street called Kallili Djadessi, to the Bridge of 
Caravans across the tawny river of Oued-Meles. On its 
steep banks were a few wooden houses, closely shuttered, and 
above them rose tall cypress trees, cutting the absolute blue 
of the sky like black spears. Here and there beneath their 
shadow were Turkish graveyards with tombstones, cut at the 
top into the form of the fez, leaning sideways, as though 
tired of standing guard over the dead. A few little Turks 
waded in the river, down which came the warm breeze known 
as the imbat. Across the bridge passed a patrol of Greek 
soldiers, singing. Turkish women veiled their faces before 
them, and an old Turk, squatting under a wall, spat as they 
passed. 

Dark and sombre rose Mount Pagus above us, with the 
fortress built on the ruins which were the palace of Alexander 
the Great, who founded this city in the dawn of history. But 
below us where all the city was outspread, the hot sunshine 
glowed warm on its huddled roofs of brown tiles and its 
whitewashed walls, while in a great curve the gulf stretched 
round more deeply blue than the sky above, and not less 
serene. The Greek gunboat Jmbros lay at anchor there, with 
its metal work sparkling, and H.M.S. Dragon—Gerald’s ship 


Miss Smith of Smyrna 51 


_—was farther out from the shore with its guns reflected in 
the mirror below. 

“Rum old place!’’ said Gerald, gazing at the scene. “I 
seem to remember something about it in my schooi books at 
Winchester.” 

“I’m afraid it will be mentioned in history again,” I said 
and at that moment I felt, in spite of the hot sunshine, a queer 
little chill down the spine. It was the foreboding of tragedy 
I had had in the house of Madame Mazarakis. 

“Can’t think why my remarkable old aunt likes it so much,” 
said Gerald, yawning in a bored way. ‘“‘With all her ducats, 
I’d take a house in civilisation, and live among people who 
wash now and then.” 

Miss Smith’s house looked as though it had been trans- 
planted from that place which Gerald had in his mind as 
civilisation—little old England. Outside the gates a long 
camel caravan had halted by a drinking well, and here, on the 
white, dusty road, with cypresses and minarets pointing sky- 
wards from a village below, was the old, old East, with its 
colour, its silence, its smells, its mystery. But inside the 
gates there were lawns and flower beds, prim and neatly kept 
as though in Surrey, and beyond, a square-built house with 
a stucco front exactly like any mid-Victorian mansion built 
in Clapham Park for a city merchant with side whiskers and 
a prosperous business. 

Its furniture, and the whole spirit of the place, as I saw 
when we entered, belonged to that period. In the hall were 
engravings of the British royal family, from paintings by 
Winterhalter, showing Queen Victoria as a young woman, 
and the future King Edward as an infant in arms, and the 
future Empress of Germany as a little girl in a white frock 
with long trousers. | 

The dining room, into which we were ushered by an elderly 
butler who looked as if he had just stepped out of St. James’s 
Square, was crammed with heavy mahogany furniture and 
shaded from the hot light of Asia by plush curtains tied up in 
silk sashes exactly like those which outraged my childish sen- 
sibilities when I used to visit a great-aunt of mine, more years 
ago than I care to remember ! | 


ae Little Novels of Nowadays 


This hoyise was in the heart of Asia Minor, but it belonged 
to the spirit of England of 1850, and had not changed by a 
hair’s breadth since. 

Gerald Tuck regarded it all as a great jest, and laughed 
boisterously at the antimacassars, or lace coverlets which 
hung over the backs of plush-covered chairs. 

“Did you ever think you’d see such things in Smyrna?” 
he said. “My aunt is the most eccentric old creature since 
the time of Queen Elizabeth.” 

Whether she heard this remark I do not know, but she 
came into the room at that moment, and her shrewd eyes 
glinted with amusement at her impudent nephew, who tried 
to cover himself by a cheery salutation: 

“Morning, aunt! Have you been for a trot on Mustapha 
to-day ?” | 

Mustapha was the white camel, which Miss Smith fed 
every morning with devoted affection and rode every after- 
noon for his health’s sake, and hers. 

“T trust you will behave with decency and respect to my 
habits of life while you are a guest in my household,” she 
answered with severity. “I am delighted to welcome you, my 
dear, but please remember that old age has its peculiarities 
and its privileges.” 

Life was not without its comedy in this little English 
oasis in the village of Burnabat, at the back of Smyrna. 
Gerald Tuck, with his irresistible sense of humour and high 
spirits, could not resist the temptation of teasing his old 
aunt, for whom secretly he had a real affection and admira- 
tion; and even at morning and evening prayers, which she 
conducted with great dignity and solemnity in the presence 
of the butler and two English maids—the Turkish servants 
and stablemen being exempt from the ceremony—he could 
not refrain from winking at me and: making comical gri- 
maces between his fingers. 

Romance, too, was not absent from my week’s sojourn in 
this strange household, for Gerald Tuck fell hopelessly and 
joyously in love with Halid, his aunt’s ward, whose beauty 
put a spell on him and whose sentiment he awakened by his 
amorous pursuit—though she was as timid as a doe and as 


Miss Smith of Smyrna a 


haughty as a daughter of the Sultan. The Turkish blood and 
character of the girl were evident in every gesture she 
made, in the grace of her body, in the smile of her long-lashed 
eyes and in the quick changes of temper that caused her to be 
merry and sad as the sunlight chases shadows. 

Gerald made her laugh, but made her angry, too, and 
sometimes she fled from him across the lawn where they 
played tennis, and once, as he told me, he found her weeping 
under the cypress trees behind the house, because she thought 
he mocked at her. 

But my remembrance of that visit to Miss Smith of Smyrna 
is not made up of comedy or romance, but rather is darkened 
by the reality of tragedy which came as a message to this 
house, and as a warning to the Greek people and to Europe. 
It was a message from Islam and the Mohammedan world, 
and though it was brought in friendship, it threatened mas- 
sacre and all the horror of war as it is made by the Crescent 
against the Cross, when Turkish bayonets are greedy for 
Christian blood. 

The messenger came one evening at dusk to the gate of 
Miss Smith’s house. It was a young Turk, mounted on a 
little Arab horse, and I happened to be standing in the hall 
with Gerald at the open door, as his figure came riding up the 
drive. The young man dismounted, raised his hand to his 
fez, and asked in very good English whether Miss Smith was 
at home. 

Gerald took it upon himself to answer, and I noticed that 
he spoke with a slight hostility. 

“T’ll see—if you care to wait. What name shall I give?” 

The man hesitated a moment, measured Gerald with keen 
eyes, and then smiled. 

“Tell her that the son of an old playmate craves a word 
with her in strictest secrecy.” 

“You do not care to give your name?” asked Gerald coldly. 

“Tt is better not, if you please,” answered the young Turk 
politely. 

“Then I will not mention Ahmed Mejid Pasha,” said Ger- 
ald, with what I thought was a note of irony in his voice. 

The young Turk gave a slight start, and for a moment his 


34 Little Novels of Nowadays 


hand went to his belt, to which a holster was strapped. Then 
he spoke quietly again: 

“Have I the ona of your acquaintance, sir?” 

“T had the pleasure of seeing you once in Constantinople,” 
said Gerald. ‘You were then a prisoner of the British 
Mission, on a charge of conspiring against the Sultan.” 

“That is true,” said the Turk gravely. “I had the good 
fortune to be liberated. I trust that, as a friend of Miss 
Smith, whom I regard as my second mother, you will keep 
my name and history secret in Smyrna?” 

“Certainly,” said Gerald carelessly. 

“Otherwise I may be a prisoner again, in hands less 
friendly than the British. I come here with a message of 
friendship to that very dear lady, Miss Smith, whom all 
Turks revere.” 

“My aunt,” said Gerald. 

“Your aunt! Then, indeed, J need have no fear!” 

Gerald’s announcement of his relationship seemed to relieve 
the young Turk of all anxiety. He saluted again, by touching 
his fez with the tips of his fingers above the forehead, and 
then his breast, which is the Turkish sign of faith. 

“Come this way,” said Gerald, and he led the young man 
to the room that Miss Smith called her study. 

Before he could knock at the door the old lady opened it 
and stood there, looking out into the hall. At the sight of 
her, Ahmed Mejid Pasha gave a little cry of delight, and 
striding forward bent very low, and seizing Miss Smith’s 
hands kissed them effusively. To my surprise the old lady 
returned this greeting and kissed the young man on both 
cheeks. 

“My dear boy!” she said, as though it were a mother speak- 
ing to her son. “How enormously you have grown since I 
saw you last! But, good gracious me, that is ten years 
ago!” 

The young Turk laughed and followed Miss Smith into 
her study and shut the door. 

It was two hours later when the door opened again, and 
during that time Gerald and I, sitting in the next room, heard 
their voices—mostly the man’s voice in what seemed like 


Miss Smith of Smyrna op) 


an interminable narrative, interrupted now and then by ques- 
tions from Miss Smith. 

Gerald gave me some clue to the man’s personality and 
purpose. 

“He’s the son of old Ahmed Mejid, who was Foreign Min- 
ister of Abdul Hamid. This fellow’s father was my aunt’s 
playmate as a child in this house. Her lover afterwards, 
I’m told, by those who know. Queer to think of my withered 
old aunt inspiring passion in the heart of a Turk! This lad 
was up to his neck in intrigue in Constantinople, until fool- 
ishly enough he was pushed out by the British. The worst 
thing possible! Of course he skipped off to Angora, and 
now he’s one of Mustapha Kemal Pasha’s cavalry leaders.” 

“What’s he doing in Smyrna?” I asked. 

And Gerald’s answer was, “Nothing good, you bet! But he 
showed pluck in coming. The Greeks would wring his neck 
if they caught him.” 

After that two hours the door of Miss Smith’s study opened 
again and we heard their voices in the hall. They spoke all 
but a few words in Turkish, and then I heard Miss Smith 
say good-bye in English. 

“Good-bye, dear lady,” answered the young Turk. 

For a moment there was silence. Perhaps he kissed the 
old woman’s hand again. Then she spoke once more, with 
painful emotion: 

“Ahmed—for your father’s sake—and he.was chivalrous 
—be merciful in the hour of victory, if that should be yours. 
My God and yours—our same Eternal Father—hates those 
who are without compassion for helpless women and little 
children and those who are defenceless. There has been too 
much blood and agony in Asia Minor, and the cry of mur- 
dered children reaches to the ears of Allah in whom you have 
Paths’ 

Some such words as these she spoke, though not perhaps, 
exactly as I have written. 

The man answered with equal emotion: 

“Mustapha Kemal Pasha is a noble leader, dear lady. He 
will restrain his followers, so far as human nature allows. 
Alas, that is not far! For if the Greeks pillage and murder 


56 Little Novels of Nowadays 


in their usual way, the swords of our men will be hungry for 
vengeance. It is that I fear.” 

A few minutes later there was the clip-clop of hoofs down 
the carriage drive to the garden gate. Ahmed Mejid Pasha 
came in the dusk and went in darkness. 

That night at dinner Miss Smith looked very old and very 
grey. Not once did she speak of her visitor, but towards the 
end of the meal she brightened a little, for the sake, I 
think, of the girl Halid, who glanced at her anxiously from 
time to time. She told little anecdotes of her early days, 
when she had gone hunting in the hills, and then spoke of her 
children—Greeks and Turks—for whom she had founded 
schools in Smyrna, and whom she loved without prejudice 
of race or creed. 

Later, when Miss Halid had gone to bed, the old lady sum- 
moned Gerald and myself to her study. 

I remember her now, as she sat in a high-backed chair, 
looking very tiny and frail, yet with a spiritual strength in 
her keen, sharp-featured face. 

“My dear,” she said, “you know I had a visit to-day from 
the son of an old friend. He tells me, Gerald, that you know 
his name and rank, and trusts to your honour and mine not 
to mention it beyond this house.” 

Gerald said, “Righto, aunt!’ and with that she was satis- 
fied, as indeed she might be, knowing the honest character 
of the boy. 

“He came with a message,” said Miss Smith; and for a 
moment her face twitched with an expression of pain. 

“What message?’ asked Gerald, and for once he spoke 
gravely. 

The old woman searched him with her eyes, as though won- 
dering how far she might trust him, and then seemed reas- 
sured, 

“It was, of course, deeply private, though, for the sake of 
peace, he allows me to make use of it at my discretion. The 
army of Islam—of Mustapha Kemal Pasha—is ready to 
attack the Greeks, and is certain of victory.” 

Gerald gave a low whistle and sat up in his chair. 

“They wish to avoid the blood and massacres that will 


Miss Smith of Smyrna 57 


inevitably drench this country if that happens,” said Miss 
Smith; and again a spasm passed over her face. ‘There is 
only one means by which these horrors can be averted.” 

She looked at me, as though I might guess what that way 
might be, but I asked the word, “How?” 

“By the rapid withdrawal of the Greek army from Smyrna 
and Thrace.” 

It was my turn to sit up in my chair and draw a deep 
breath. | 

“That will never happen,” I said. “There are too many 
interests involved, and too many passions.” 

That remark of mine angered her intensely. She struck 
the arms of her chair with both hands, and her eyes were afire 
as she turned them upon me. 

“Too many interests involved! Yes. And too many vil- 
lainies and stupidities among the powers and politicians who 
are running the world and condemning its innocents to death! 
Why does the British Government support the Greek claim 
to Smyrna, which their army can never hold by their own 
power? Are British forces coming here to defend this 
unhappy population when the Greek army is routed—or 
before? Tell me that!” 

“I’m afraid not,” I said. “Our people are for peace, and 
sick of war.” 

“Then why adopt a policy which leads to war?” asked the 
old lady. “It is madness! Every man in the Mohammedan 
world will die rather than submit to Asia Minor being par- 
celled out among the Greeks. I have lived among them all 
my life. They have been good friends.to me. Old woman as 
J am, I would have made a better peace with them than that 
treaty, which was botched up by politicians greedy for power 
and drunk with victory.” 

“French as well as English,” I said; “pro-Turk as well as 
pro-Greek ; Italian as well as French.” 

The old lady struck the arm of her chair again. 

“Do not talk foolishness like that to me,” she said angrily. 
“France and Italy and England bargained with each other 
for their own selfishness, forgetting the interests of millions 
of humble folk who wish to live in peace. Now they quarrel 


58 Little Novels of Nowadays 


with each other, like thieves dissatisfied with their share of 
loot. Not for love of the Turk, but to get even with England, 
France sends arms and munitions to Mustapha Kemal. Not 
for love of Greece but for self-interest, or for sheer folly, 
England incites the Greeks in their imperialism, and both 
sides will betray both sides if it suits their purpose.” 

“You are very severe,” I said. “We’re not as bad as that, 
though I agree as to the stupidity of our politicians.” 

She ignored my words and continued her excited mono- 
logue. | 

“They call me pro-Turk,” she said bitterly. “The English 
mission here in Smyrna call me the old Turkish woman, and 
suspect me of sending news to Angora, because Mustapha 
Kemal learned his English in this house. I am no more pro- 
Turk than pro-Greek! It is because I love the Greek people 
in Asia Minor—have I not taught them in my schools and 
loved their little ones ?—that I wish to save them from further 
massacres and a renewal of those dreadful horrors that come 
with war. Now it is too late.” 

“Why too late?’ asked Gerald. 

“Have I not told you?’ she answered. “In a few weeks 
Mustapha Kemal will advance with his army. He is a great 
general, and more of a soldier than that fat old man who sits 
in the Greek headquarters, ignorant and vain and futile.” 

“The Greeks can put up a good scrap,” said Gerald. “They 
may knock hell out of old man Turk.” 

“Don’t be a fool, child!’ said Miss Smith. 

“Sorry, aunt!” said Gerald with great cheerfulness, and he 
winked at me. 

The old lady seemed to be thinking very deeply. She sat 
silent for quite a while, with her little wrinkled hands play- 
ing with some jet beads on her dress. 

“There’s one man who might listen to me, and act in time,” 
she said at last. ‘‘He’s a fool, of course, but not quite such 
a fool as he’s painted.” 

““Who’s that ?” asked Gerald. 

“Constantine.” 

“Tino? That blighter ?” 

The old lady nodded and said, “He’s got courage, and is 


Miss Smith of Smyrna 59 


obstinate in his decisions. He might listen to me and avert 
the disaster that is coming.” 

She rose from her chair and walked nervously up and 
down the room with quick little steps, while Gerald watched 
her curiously, puffing at a cigarette. 

Presently she stopped and spoke to us again. 

“Yes, it’s my duty. Ill go and see the king in Athens. I 
will tell him what I know. I may be the messenger of God’s 
mercy.” 

“My dear aunt!” said Gerald, sitting up and throwing away 
his cigarette. “You'll probably catch your death of cold on 
the boat and do no good whatever at the end of the journey. 
My advice to you is to sit tight here. Even if the Turks 
do advance they won’t hurt you.” 

“They'll hurt my little ones,” said the old lady. “In peace 
the Turk is a good man. In war he has no pity for man, 
woman or child.” 

Nothing would divert the old lady from this idea in her 
head—a journey to Athens, to warn the king of coming 
danger and defeat. 

It was not my place to dissuade her, and Gerald’s advice 
was ignored as though:a child spoke. 

It was for his sake as well as out of admiration for an old 
woman’s pluck that I offered to accompany her to Athens on 
my way back to England. 

I think she was glad of that offer, and the little help I 
could give her in the way of carrying her handbag to the 
boat. 

“T shall be back within a week, my dear,” she told the 
girl Halid, whom she embraced tenderly. ‘You will be safe 
here in this old house with my faithful servants.” 

The girl wept bitterly at parting with the old lady, but I 
think some of her tears were for Gerald, who was returning 
with us to his ship. They had a little love passage in the 
garden, i think, and Gerald told me afterwards that he had 
kissed the girl, and promised to come back to her. 

All the servants, Turks and English, gathered round that 
carriage drawn by two Anatolian ponies before we drove off 
and the old white camel, Mustapha, snuffled and stamped as 


60 Little Novels of Nowadays 


though indignant that his beloved mistress should travel with- 
out him. 

“Be a good boy!” she called out to this hideous beast. 

At the gateway Gerald and I turned in the carriage to wave 
our hands to Miss Halid, who stood there weeping, and yet 
laughing a little because of Gerald’s ardent demonstration 
with his naval cap. It was the last time I saw Miss Smith’s 
stucco-fronted house and her smooth lawns and flower beds 
—this English oasis in Asia Minor. No eyes will ever see 
it again, for the house is a black ruin of charred timbers and 
brick, and the flower beds were trampled into mud by Turk- 
ish cavalry. 

On the way through Smyrna, I was astonished by the 
royal progress of the old lady. Certainly she had the love 
of this people. Turkish women came to the doors to raise 
their hands as she passed, and little Turkish children ran 
alongside the carriage for a way with shouts of “Mees 
Smeet! Mees Smeet!’ It was the same in the Armenian 
and Greek quarters, where the children were coming out 
of school—some of the schools she had founded for them, 
and maintained at her own cost. They greeted her appear- 
ance with shrill cheers, and one pretty girl threw into her 
carriage a handful of flowers she had plucked from some 
garden. Miss Smith turned to me once and put her hand on 
mine. 

“T would give my old life to save these little ones,” she 
said. “Perhaps God will bless my journey’s end.” 

If I remember rightly, it was a voyage of sixteen hours to 
Athens, in a little boat that had once been the steam yacht of 
Vanderbilt and was now converted into a passenger ship 
and named the Polikos. It was vastly overcrowded with 
Greek officers and men, a group of Italian soldiers and a 
number of Israelites. I managed to secure a cabin for Miss 
Smith, and had a berth for myself amidships, with Greek 
officers above and below, violently and emotionally sick when 
the sea rose after dusk and made the boat pitch in a most 
unpleasant way. 

At Athens the old lady and I put up at the Grande Bre- 
tagne, a very beautiful hotel, not far from the king’s palace, 


Miss Smith of Smyrna | 61 


That very morning, with indomitable energy, the old lady, 
who had passed a sleepless night, as she told me, drove in 
a hired motor car to the palace; and I think I see her now, 
as she sat there, under a black parasol, with the hot sun of 
Athens pouring into the car and dazzling so fiercely upon the 
white marble-fronted houses that it was painful to the eyes. 
She looked to me like a little old queen, and it was with the 
dignity of such that she bowed to some Greek officers who 
passed and saluted her. 

“My dear,” she said to me, “if you were not a journalist, 
I should ask you to pray for me now. I go to a meeting 
which may save the lives of thousands of poor, simple folks, 
and innocent little children. There is at least the chance of 
a miracle.” 

Not more than that, I thought; and miracles, alas, have 
not been frequent of late. 

And yet I think I said something like a prayer for the old 
woman as I walked through the king’s gardens—open to the 
public in part—and then sat on the terrace of an open-air 
café looking towards Mount Hymettus, where once Homer 
lay and listened to the bees, and to the ruin of the Acropolis, 
where the sunlight fell upon the amber-tinted pillars of the 
Parthenon, and the Temple of Athena, under a cloudless sky 
of fathomless blue, as when Euripides described the Athe- 
nians of old “marching through an ether of surpassing bright- 
ness.” 

Some Greek schoolboys went singing towards the white 
arena where, three thousand years ago, other boys of their 
race threw the discus, as they were going to do, for some con- 
test between their schools. In white vests and shorts, their 
necks and arms and legs were burnt the colour of terra cotta, 
and in their beauty of youth they were not unworthy of those 
young athletes whose forms were carved in marble by a mas- 
ter hand, for the world’s delight. 

Sitting there, in this scene where all the glory of Greek 
history had passed, where those very stones around had been 
worn by the feet of men who gave the grace of art to life, and 
a philosophy to which we still turn for wisdom, I was moved 
by the thought of the tragedy that seemed to be coming 


62 Little Novels of Nowadays 


swiftly to the modern Greeks and was filled with pity for the 
wreck of their illusions, hopes, ambitions, sacrifice. They 
had gone back to Asia Minor, lured by the old tradition of 
Greek empire, finding old stones as its proof in history, and 
remnants of their people. They had looked with greedy 
eyes toward Constantinople, in which they had founded the 
Byzantine Empire as a bulwark of Christendom against the 
infidel. There was an old prophecy that Constantine would 
come back there, that the Mass of the Greek Church would 
be resumed in San Sofia, from the point where it had broken 
off with a cry of terror when Mohammed II rode in with his 
Turks and slew until the walls were splashed with blood. 
It was that legend of the coming back of Constantine which 
had uplifted the Greek people and inspired their army. Now 
an old woman was with the king in whom their hopes were 
centred, telling him, perhaps, that defeat was certain, and that 
to save his people from massacre he must surrender their 
claims ! 

Strange episode of history! Fantastic that an old lady 
named Miss Smith should go on such a mission! Incredible 
in its absurdity, when one believed, as I did, and do now, that 
Miss Smith of Smyrna, this shrewd old maid, beloved by 
Turks and Greeks alike, had received a message of fate from 
Mustapha Kemal Pasha, and knew the truth of it. 

I saw her coming out of the king’s garden in her hired 
motor car. She sat with her hands clasped in her lap, and her 
head bent. | 

I held up my hand to stop the car, and took a seat beside 
her. “What news?” I asked. 

She put her hand on mine with that little gesture which 
was a habit with her. 

“TI have failed,” she said simply. “They jeered at me as 
a mad old woman.” 

Presently she told me that she had given way to anger. 
She had threatened those who jeered with a tragedy that 
would make them weep blood for their folly. She had told 
Constantine that his crown was worth no more than a jes- 
ter’s cap and damned him as the assassin of his race. They 
had turned her out, as an old lunatic. 


Miss Smith of Smyrna. 63 


3 


“Now I go back to Smyrna,” she said, “to await the red 
flame that will rise before the flag of Islam.” 

I tried to persuade her to stay in Athens a while, but she 
spoke of Halid, her best beloved, and of the children who 
believed in her as a protectress. 

“Because once I stopped a massacre of Turks,” she said, 
“they may listen to an old woman when she prays for mercy 
on the Greeks.” 

That very night, without rest, the old lady embarked again 
for Smyrna, and I shall not see her again in this life. 

The attack by Mustapha Kemal began three weeks to the 
day after her return, and the whole world knows the tragedy 
of Smyrna, the burning of that fair city, the driving of 
Christians into its hungry flames, the bayoneting of women 
and children, the cry of agony that went out to sea above the 
roar of fire, and was heard by naval men watching from their 
ships. 

Gerald Tuck was there, on the Dragon, and knew that 
somewhere in that hell was the old lady, his aunt, and the 
young girl whose beauty had put a spell on him. 

From an American Red Cross worker I heard of Miss 
Smith in her last hour. She had come down into Smyrna with | 
Miss Halid and stayed with the Greek children and teachers 
of one of her schools. When the first squadron of Turkish 
cavalry rode down the quay side she went out to meet them 
and spoke to the commander, who was Ahmed Mejid Pasha. 
He bent down over his saddle and spoke to her gently. 

It was not the regular cavalry that began the massacre, 
but the irregulars who came with them. The leaders tried 
to restrain their men, but could do nothing when their mad-- 
ness began. 

Among the houses that went up in flames was that of: 
Lieutenant Mazarakis, where I had taken tea so often with 
a woman who was afraid, and children who sang to me. 

It is certain that Miss Smith of Smyrna died in the fire of 
her schoolhouse, where many little ones of Greece whom she 
had tried to save went with her, as I verily believe, to that 
great peace where no cruelty of men may enter in. 


9 


II: THE BEGGAR OF BERLIN 


I WAS standing outside one of the antiquity shops of the 
Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin, studying some fine old engrav- 
ings displayed in the window, when a voice over my shoul- 
der spoke to me in excellent English: 

“For the love of God, sir, will you give me a few marks ?” 

I turned round, astonished by the way in which these 
words were spoken, not whiningly, but in a very pleasant and 
courteous voice. 

There were many beggars in Berlin four years after the 
war, at a time when German marks had dropped in exchange 
value to twenty a penny; and as an Englishman I had been 
accosted often enough by hungry-looking creatures slouching 
through the streets, especially at night; but no German beg- 
gar had spoken to me in English, or in such a tone. 

I was still more astonished by the figure of the man who 
had spoken.. He was young and singularly handsome, with 
a finely sculptured face and blue eyes; but his whole appear- 
ance was extraordinary in the Wilhelmstrasse, fairly 
crowded at that hour in the afternoon with well-dressed 
Germans of a business type and foreign visitors searching for 
bargains in the shops, as I was, while marks were cheap in 
exchange. He was unshaven, and had a softly curling beard. 
His hair, unkempt and matted, was so long that it touched 
his shoulders. He wore nothing but a brown linen shirt, 
open at the neck, a pair of cotton drawers, above the knees, 
and a pair of sandals. He carried a tall stick, cut from a 
hedge; and with his bare limbs and neck, deeply bronzed by 
the sun, he had the look of a young shepherd, or, as I thought 
afterwards, of John the Baptist in a picture by Titian. I 
noticed that he had a tin whistle slung round his neck on a 
piece of knotted string. 

As I took out my pocket-book, he spoke again, with hardly 
any foreign accent. 

64 


The Beggar of Berlin 65 


“Do not give me more than five marks at the most. On 
twenty marks a day I can keep alive, and I do not accept 
more than five marks at a time.” 

“Surely,” I said, “you cannot live on twenty marks!’ 

I remembered the price of my last meal at the Hotel Wotan. 
It had cost me seven hundred and fifty marks, and was 
ridiculously cheap when reckoned in English exchange. 

“It is enough for a little bread,” he answered, “and that 
is enough for life. Here, in Berlin, there are many people 
who are destroying their souls by over-eating, while others 
starve. One cannot love God and one’s belly at the same 
time. By denying the flesh, the soul, I find, has liberty.” 

I gave him five marks—worth less than a farthing in Eng- 
lish money—and he said, “in giving this your gain is greater 
than mine, if it is with charity in your heart.” 

I wondered if he were mad; and it seems to me a confes- 
sion of my own material outlook on life, as well as a reflec- 
tion on our social code as a whole, that one should think a 
man mad because he dresses in rags and speaks gently of 
charity. Certainly, in accepting my gift, such as it was, he 
seemed to confer a favour rather than receive one. As an 
incurable student of human nature, I was much struck by 
this young German, unlike any others I had seen, aes tried 
to get into further conversation with him. 

“How is it you are a beggar?” I asked. ‘And yet at the 
same time you are certainly a gentleman, and speak English 
as well as I do, and perhaps better.” 

He smiled at me in a friendly way, and I was impressed by 
a kind of noble simplicity of manner in him, and what I can 
only call beauty of expression. 

“As for my English,” he said, “I had an English mother. 
I am a gentleman because of her. I have adopted begging 
as a more honest way to live than that of my father. He was 
a robber in a large way of business. I go among the people 
of misery and comfort them a little by good old tales and 
pleasant tunes. You see, I play this whistle.” 

He unslung the tin whistle which hung round his neck, 
and putting it to his lips played a merry little tune—merry 
as an old folk song that has the love of life in its lilt. There, 


66 Little Novels of Nowadays 


in the Wilhelmstrasse, near the British Embassy, this strange 
young man played as if he and I were alone in a German 
wood. Two Germans, carrying flat, black-leather bags, like . 
all men of business in Berlin, turned round and stared at him 
contemptuously a moment, and then passed on with the anx- 
ious look of men who, like most others at that time in Berlin, 
had been gambling in marks and badly caught by the finan- 
cial stampede which was bringing German currency to the 
level of waste paper or Austrian kronen. 

Two small boys who had come trudging up the Wilhelm- 
strasse with school satchels over their shoulders, stopped 
to listen to the tune, and grinned with delight in their eyes. 
They seemed to know the young man, for they shouted out, 
“Guten Tag, Hans von Menzel!’ He answered in German. 
“Good day, little mice! Shall I play you the oldest tune that 
was ever known in Germany, before Berlin was built, and 
when there was love in the world?” 

“Yes, play it!” shouted the boys. 

The young German raised his hedge stick to me, as a sol- 
dier does his sword in salute. 

“We shall meet again,” he said, “before our civilisation 
slips into the great abyss. God is weary of the folly of men. 
Auf Wiedersehen!” 

He went down the Wilhelmstrasse, playing his tin whistle, 
with a small boy on either side of him. People coming up 
the street glanced back at him, some with smiles, some with 
scornful eyes, one or two with pity that so handsome a fel- 
low should be so poverty-stricken or so crazed. 

That was the first time I saw Hans von Menzel, and I 
should have forgotten him, perhaps, or merely remembered 
him as a strange type of humanity in my mental portrait 
gallery of odd fellows, if he had not come my way again 
during my stay in Germany. 

I was sitting alone at a little table in the great dining room 
of the Hotel Wotan. Without a companion that evening, I 
was studying, with no sense of loneliness, the varied types 
of people dining around me. They seemed to me, not un- 
fairly, I think, the worst assembly of men and women, with 
a few decent exceptions, that could be found together in any 


The Beggar of Berlin 67 


room in the world. They seemed to me to represent all that 
is most evil in our modern civilisation, and pas in this 
Europe of ours after the war. 

They were mostly foreigners, who were gorging themselves 
here, in the marble halls of a hotel of which the Kaiser had 
once been a shareholder, as his bust over the high sculptured 
mantelpiece reminded one, in defiance of the Republic. They 
were the international vultures who gather in the capitals 
of Europe, in which there is financial decay and corruption 
upon which they thrive. They were the gamblers in German 
marks ; the Valuta hogs, as they were called ; the pawnbrokers 
of German wealth and the cheapjacks of German art, antiq- 
uities, furniture, jewels; buying cheap from fallen families ; 
raking the shops for treasures which they bought when marks 
were at their lowest before prices rose; lending money at 
enormous rates of interest with stranglehold securities on 
German industry, and doing every shady kind of business 
with a hard-pressed people in a thousand ways that are mys- 
terious to me. 

The Hotel Wotan had raised its prices three times during 
the month in which I had been in Berlin, when the mark had 
fallen precipitously ; but in spite of that increase in cost, one 
could still dine luxuriously for what represented a few shil- 
lings in English money. For fourpence, for instance, at 
what was then the rate of exchange, one could get the best 
Rhine wine—Niersteiner or Rudesheimer—one of those tall, 
thin-necked bottles which are the best table decorations of a 
German banquet. The people here seemed to wallow, bodily 
and mentally, in this cheap chance of gluttony. They ate 
and drank with greedy eyes, as well as greedy mouths. The 
fat fingers of their women were loaded with rings bought in 
the trinket shops of Unter den Linden. The men wore new 
wrist watches and flashed diamond-studded cigarette cases. 
One party near me, curiously stunted, coarsely made, loud- 
mouthed men and women, speaking German with a foreign 
accent, were drinking liqueurs between their courses of meat, 
and bullying the waiters, who were extraordinarily patient, 
I thought, with their bad manners. 

It was one of the waiters who interpreted my own thoughts. 


68 Little Novels of Nowadays ' 


He was a little, vivacious, good-natured fellow, who seemed 
to have taken a particular fancy to me because I happened 
to know most of the old danger spots in Flanders, where he 
had fought against the English in the war. He had been a 
lieutenant in the German army, and explained his present 
position as a waiter at the Hotel Wotan by a shrug of the 
shoulders and the words, “One must earn a living somehow.” 
He told me that several of the waiters were men of good 
family like himself. They earned small salaries—only eight 
hundred and fifty marks a month, which, he said, was not 
enough to keep a rat alive in Berlin—but they made up a 
living wage by the tips they received from Americans and 
English. Cont 

“Most of this crowd here,” he said, speaking in a low voice, 
“ought to be put in a death chamber with poison gas. I’m 
a pacifist after the war, but these people make me feel mur- 
derous.” 

“They are not a good type,” I agreed. 

“They are fattening on the ruin of Germany.” 

“Germany has not reached ruin yet,” I said. ‘Everybody 
seems to have plenty of paper money and it still buys them the 
pleasure of life. England is in a far worse state, with her 
unemployed and overtaxed people.” 

He brushed some crumbs off the table and looked at me 
with searching eyes. ‘‘Do you want to know the truth about 
Germany?” he asked me. 

“That’s what I’m here for,” I answered. 

He told me his view of the truth, with a kind of quiet pas- 
sion and what I am sure was absolute sincerity. 

“My country is on the edge of the great crash. This 
German civilisation of ours, so great in energy and in splen- 
dour”’—he looked round at the marble halls of the Hotel 
Wotan as though they symbolised the grandeur of German 
industry and art—“is standing on foundations that are rot- 
ting and crumbling and cracking beneath us.” 

“As bad as that?” I asked with incredulity. 

“One little push from the French or the British, even one 
more turn of the screw from fate, and down we go into the 
great gulf—and Europe will go with us.” 


The Beggar of Berlin 69 


“There is a lot of wealth in Germany,” I said. 

“Paper !”’ he answered with contempt. “False notes, flung 
out from the government presses for fools to play with! 
The German people are fools, because they still think it has 
some reality. For a little while they can buy real things with 
it, because the shopkeepers are fools, too, and think it has 
some kind of value. But even the people who get it find its 
reality disappears between their fingers like snow on which 
the sun shines. Even they have learned not to keep it long. | 
A thousand marks to-day may be worth no more than five 
hundred the day after to-morrow. So people who catch the 
paper money while it flies spend quickly. Good old German 
thrift has gone to the devil. ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for 
to-morrow we die!’ That’s the motto even for good, honest, 
middle-class folk—and it’s right enough. To-morrow 
Germany will die as an industrial nation, unless the world 
forgets its hate and comes to her rescue. And if Germany 
dies, Europe dies.” .. 

“Whose fault?” I asked. 

He shrugged his shoulders in that quick, vivacious way he 
had. 

“The Allies pressed us too hard,” he said. “France kicked 
us when we were down, I agree. But the German Govern- 
ment is mostly to blame. Just as our generals played the 
gambler’s game to the last throw in the war, so our politicians 
now are gambling with the fate of the nation in this peace, 
with faked-paper printing presses working overtime, the 
exploitation of a people’s industry by sham wages. You see, 
I tell you the truth, as one soldier to another.” 

“What’s going to happen?” I asked. 

“This winter there will be riots in Berlin and many other 
cities.” 

“Some of these people will get a fright,” I said. 

He laughed for a moment, and then was gloomy again. 
He was moving away when something startled him, as it did 
me. The band had just finished playing one of Leo Fall’s 
waltzes, and in the silence that followed—a relative silence, 
with the chatter of many voices in many tongues and the 
clatter of plates and glasses as the waiters did their work— 


70 Little Novels of Nowadays 


‘there came the sound of a little piping tune on a tin whistle. 
I recognised this sound instantly. It was the tune which the 
strange young beggar had played to me in Wilhelmstrasse, 
as though he and I were alone in a German wood. 

I looked across the tables where the Valuta hogs were din- 
ing, and saw his figure standing between two marble pillars 
through which one had to pass from the great entrance hall 
to this dining room. He was in the same queer costume, 
with his brown linen shirt open at the neck, and his white 
cotton drawers above his brown legs. His long hedge stick 
was stuck through the curve of his elbow like a shepherd’s 
crook, as he held his tin whistle in both hands and played 
his tune. It was as though a Greek boy had come straying 
out of old Hellas to this hotel of modern luxury and rich 
vulgarity; or, rather, as I thought again, as though young 
John the Baptist were in this house of publicans. Moving 
slowly, with a little smile on his face, he came down the 
centre line of tables untilyhe reached the middle of the 
immense room, and all the time he played his little lilting 
tune. 

Many of the guests stared at him with surprise, but as 
though he might have been engaged by the management as 
some special turn, like the Russian gipsies who sang each 
night at the Monico in the Kurfuirstendam. But it was clear 
to me at a glance that the waiters were astounded, and even, 
I thought, a little frightened. They stopped carrying plates 
or taking orders, and some of them whispered together, 
glancing at their strange guest with apprehension. 

He finished his tune and then leaned on his tall stick, look- 
ing very gravely and watchfully at the faces of the people 
about him. Then he began to speak in German, in that 
pleasant musical voice which I had heard over my shoulder 
in the Wilhelmstrasse when he asked me for five marks 
for the love of God. He spoke with a kind of pity, it seemed. 

“You are rich people here,” he said, “but you are all most 
evil to see. If you could see yourselves as I think God must 
see you, you would be frightened at your own ugliness. You 
are as ugly as sin, because you are that. You are like beasts 
wallowing at the trough; strange pampered beasts in human 


The Beggar of Berlin fai 


clothes, bedecked with jewels and fine linen. I was like you 
once, before I saw my own ugliness in the mirror of God’s 
beauty. Because I was like you, I understand and am sorry 
for you. I understand the ignorance which makes you 
greedy and cruel and careless of the world of suffering about 
you which you have helped to make. I think God will not 
blame you, because He understands. But it is certain that 
unless you cleanse yourselves, and put cruelty out of your 
hearts, and learn the joy of love and beauty and suffering and. 
sacrifice, there will be great torment for you. Because all 
the things in which you take delight are doomed. This 
money for which you have sold your souls, will melt away 
in your coffers. To-day you eat too much, but in a little 
while you will starve. Even those diamonds which flash on 
your fat fingers will be worth no more than flints to buy the 
needs of your bodies, for one cannot get bread out of stones. 
This Europe of ours, which is your playground, is dying of 
corruption and disease. There is no health in it, because such 
as you have poisoned it, as you are poisoned. It is poisoned 
with hate and lies and greed, and its body dies because its 
soul is dead. I have come to tell you of these things, and to 
save you, if I can, from the wrath of those who are hungry 
while you eat too much. And now I play you again a little 
tune that was made when there was love in the world.” 

He put his tin whistle to his lips and played the quaintest, 
merriest little melody, which. seemed to me, perhaps to others, 
like the patter of dancing feet in some old German town away 
back in fairy-tale time, before there was ever poison gas or 
the whir of a bomb-laden Gotha. Then slowly he went 
towards the entrance hall and disappeared behind the pillars. 

The effect of this appearance and speech on the people 
dining in the Hotel Wotan was curious to me. Even to the 
end, quite a number of them were clearly convinced that 
this was a new kind of turn for their entertainment. It was 
intended to be funny, they thought, and they smiled and 
nodded to each other and wagged their heads as though here 
was a great jest and some deep irony which they did not alto- 
gether understand, but which, no doubt, was the latest thing 
in Berlin. Others were dumbfounded, and, having been 


72 Little Novels of Nowadays 


stricken into silence for a time, presently began to murmur 
angrily. A fat little man at the next table to mine became 
purple in the face, and demanded to know why the police 
allowed a scoundrel like that to invade the best hotel in Berlin 
and grossly insult the guests. 

My little waiter, the German lieutenant, came with my cof- 
fee, and uttered the word “Ausserordentlich!”’ with an air of 
consternation mingled with amusement. 

“Who is this Hans von Menzel ?” I asked. 

He was surprised that I knew the man’s name, until I told 
him of my encounter. 

“His father was Graf von Menzel—you remember ?—the 
great financier who was ruined by the war and shot himself 
in the Deutsche Bank. It made a great stir-at the time. He 
was the biggest gambler on the stock market, and one of the 
biggest scoundrels in Germany.” 

“But this young man—is he mad?” 

“Was Christ mad?” asked the German waiter. 

He did not wait for an answer to that question, but told 
me some details about the son of the great financier. Before 
the war he had been notorious in the fast life of Berlin. 
Having great artistic talent, most of his associates were young 
artists of the advanced school—futurists, vorticists, all those 
queer freaks, said my little waiter, who upset the laws of per- 
spective, painted pictures upside down and inside out, put 
women’s noses under their elbows and men’s eyes in their 
beards, and seemed to find some exquisite joy in masses of 
violent colour and patterns of meaningless lines. 

Hans von Menzel had had a house in the Kurftirstendam 
decorated in that fashion, an absolute madhouse, from all 
accounts, and there he indulged in orgies which were the 
scandal of Berlin. A wonderfully handsome youth, he was 
adored by women, and there had been much talk about his 
entanglement with the Russian dancer, Kakoshka. 

Then the war came. It seemed to change him utterly. 
With the Second Prussian Guards he had been wonderfully 
brave. He won the Iron Cross before it had become cheap, 
and was three times wounded in Flanders and once after- 
wards at Verdun. Towards the end of the war something 


The Beggar of Berlin 73 


changed him again. He was put under arrest for preaching 
pacificism to the troops. After the war and his father’s sui- 
cide he abandoned everything, lived like a tramp and a beg- 
gar, and wandered about, as I had seen him, playing his tin 
whistle, telling fairy tales to children, talking about love and 
peace to peasants and poor people, the night birds of Berlin 
and the criminal classes of the East End. 

“A case of shell shock,” I suggested. 

The little German waiter shrugged his shoulders in his 
characteristic way. 

“Soul shock, if you like! I don’t understand these things. 
But this Hans von Menzel is not without followers. A saint, 
people call him in the working quarters. The children follow 
him like the Pied Piper of Hamelin—and more than children. 
Have you seen those young people about in Berlin and the 
countryside, showing their necks and arms and legs, all sun- 
burned, and carrying little packs on their backs?” 

Yes, I had seen them, and wondered at them. They were 
mostly boys and girls of any age from eighteen to twenty- 
two, I guessed. They wandered among the Berlin crowds 
like people starting for a walking tour. 

“They are following the gospel of Hans von Menzel,” said 
my waiter. “It’s a new cult—the abandonment of civilisa- 
tion, poverty and nature, peace and beauty, beggars for the 
love of God, a denial of all that built up German pride and 
power before the war. They seek to replace love in the 
world. In my opinion’’—the little waiter glanced round the 
room at the people he despised and hated—“‘it can’t be done 
at this period of the world’s history.” 

He laughed as though he had found some jest in those 
words, and went away to make out my bill. 

It was partly by coincidence, yet not wholly, that I came in 
touch with people in Berlin who knew Hans von Menzel with 
more intimate knowledge than the waiter at the Hotel Wotan, 
and that afterwards I had the chance of knowing him myself. 
. . . It was a coincidence that on the night afte: his appear- 
ance at the hotel I saw the name Kakoshka printed large on a 
playroll in the Potsdamerplatz. That name did not link itself 
in my mind at first with the man who had made himself a 


74 Little Novels of Nowadays 


beggar, and it was only later that I remembered that it had 
been mentioned in the waiter’s life story of Hans von Menzel. 
What it recalled to me was a dainty little lady who had been 
my table companion on board the Olympic, sailing from New 
York. Enormous bouquets of flowers had been carried on 
board for her, and before the ship left the landing stage a 
platoon of photographers and movie men had surrounded 
her on the upper deck—a sure sign that she had made good 
in the United States and was leaving after a triumphal time. 

At the purser’s table I had long talks with her about the 
art of dancing and the beauty of rhythm and the Russian 
revolution and Bolshevism, which she hated with a kind of 
anguish of hate, and American characteristics, and, of course, 
the inevitable subject of prohibition, which at that time could 
not be avoided by any visitor to the United States. She had 
not been spoiled, I thought, by adulation and success, though 
I knew nothing of her private life or her love affairs, which 
I was told had been many and varied. To me, anyhow, she 
was simple and frank, not hiding her peasant origin—she had 
been born in the village of Lubimovka, somewhere on the 
Volga, and had tended her father’s sheep as a child—or 
seeming to notice the curiosity and homage, as far as men’s 
eyes roved, which she aroused among the first-class passen- 
gers. She was too small to be beautiful, I thought; but 
remarkably pretty, like a little shepherdess in Dresden china, 
and enormously alive, like some fairy creature, sensitive to 
every breath of wind and every glint of sunshine, and ready 
for instant flight. 

Kakoshka. The name stared at me from the hoarding in 
the Potsdamerplatz, and I saw that she was dancing at the 
Monico, where the Russian gipsies were singing. I took a 
taxi to the place, lured by the thought of seeing her again, 
and it was only then, on the way, that I remembered the 
words spoken about Hans von Menzel by the waiter at the 
Wotan—“There had been much talk about his entanglement 
with the Russian dancer, Kakoshka.” Perhaps if I could 
speak to her she would tell me more about that remarkable 
young man. 

The Monico restaurant was already crowded when I arrived 


The Beggar of Berlin 73 


there at a few minutes after ten. The cloakroom attendant, 
a bearded man with sinister eyes, remarkably like Lenin, the 
Bolshevik dictator, told me civilly that I had better get my 
seat quickly or there would be no room left. Most of the 
people were finishing dinner at small tables crowded with the 
débris of their meals and with bottles of wine, empty or half 
filled. The atmosphere was of the end-of-the-meal variety, 
thick with tobacco smoke and the fumes of wine, and the 
greasy odours of cooked food. Yet the company was more 
agreeable, I thought, than that of the Wotan, and the place 
more amusing. 

The people here were mostly Russians, with a sprinkling 
of young Germans of the professional and intellectual class 
—artists and literary men, I should say, by the look of them 
—and two or three parties of American journalists whom I 
happened to know. It was with a little American group that 
I took my seat; and one of them, young Wendell, was sur- 
prised at my ignorance of a place which, he said, was one of 
the brightest dives in Berlin. 

“You're just in time to see Kakoshka,” he told me. “She’s 
great! She comes on after the Russian gipsies have done 
their first stunt.” | 

A little fat man was leading a stringed orchestra with a 
tiny concertina, or accordion, which he played in and out 
among the tables with astonishing genius and emotion, so 
that he made it sound like a church organ. 

For a few minutes he seemed to make love with it to a 
very handsome young woman dining with an elderly cavalier, 
and she gave him her hand to kiss as a reward for his efforts. 

“That’s Princess Bourishkine,” said young Wendell, who 
knew everybody. “She escaped from a Bolshevik prison in 
the uniform of a Red soldier whom she had bribed. That’s 
her portrait on the wall, in the old Russian dress. Pretty 
good piece of work, don’t you think?” 

Then he said, “Here come the gips! They sing as though 
they bathed in vodka—all fire and spirit.” 

I had seen them before, in Moscow, in the time of famine; 
and now, in this German restaurant, their strange Oriental 
songs, the harshness of the women’s voices, which has some 


76 Little Novels of Nowadays 


thrilling quality to those who hear the ancient East in it, 
the sharp, quickening rhythm, like horses galloping with a 
Russian sleigh, the question and answer of songs between 
the men and women, and those Slav faces, brought back to 
me memories of strange adventures down the Volga with 
which this story has nothing to do, except as an introduction 
to Kakoshka. 

That little lady came in after the gipsies had retired. She 
was dressed like the portrait of Princess Bourishkine, in the 
old Russian style, with a jewelled crown, and all the guests in 
the Monico greeted her with enthusiasm, calling out to her 
in Russian and German. She kissed her hands to them before 
dancing, and I saw again the grace of those little hands which 
I had noticed on board the Olympic when she was my table 
companion, and the aliveness of that fairy body of hers, all 
tingling from head to foot, it seemed, with the vital spark. 
She danced in the old Russian way, with the most exquisite 
charm and humour, yet I think her dress did not give her 
all her chance, and I should have liked her best in simple 
ballet dress like Columbine. 

It was while she was dancing that she recognised me. I 
saw the surprise in her eyes, and then the nod of greeting. 

“She seems to be giving me the glad eye!” said young 
Wendell, highly flattered. 

“No,” I said, “I claim that. We’re old friends.” 

“You're old enough to know better,” was Wendell’s way 
of revenge. 

She beckoned me later to her table, where, after the dance 
she sat with Princess Bourishkine, to whom she introduced 
me. Fortunately, after ten minutes, the princess left with her 
old gentleman, and Kakoshka and I were able to get some 
private talk, covered by the noise of the orchestra and by a 
second instalment of gipsy songs. 

“Tell me,” she said, “what are your adventures since that 
Olympic voyage? Where have you been? Where do you 
come from?” 

“Russia, among other places, since we have met,” I told 
her; and that excited her, and she asked a thousand ques- 
tions about the state of Russia, and what was happening in 


The Beggar of Berlin ah 


Moscow and Petrograd, and who was left alive among the 
people she used to know when she was in the Imperial ballet. 
There were tears in her eyes when I told her some of the 
things I had seen. 

Then presently she asked me about my business in Berlin, 
and laughed when I told her I was there to study the human 
nature of Germans after the war, and to try to solve the rid- 
dle of their mentality, upon which future peace or war would 
certainly depend. 

“Have you found any revelation?” she asked with a smile. 
“Have you met any new prophet of Kultur?” 

“T’m on the track of one,” I answered lightly. “Anyhow, 
he has the appearance of a prophet, like John the Baptist. He 
is called Hans von Menzel.” 

She was greatly startled and distressed by my mention of 
that name. Her face became extremely pale, and then was 
swept by a warm flush of colour. 

She sat quite still for a few moments, staring into my eyes 
but not seeing me, I think, because her thoughts were busy 
with some emotional history of her past life. 

“T knew that man once,” she said presently; “he was my 
lover. I dare say you have been told that in Berlin?” 

“Only once, and that vaguely,” I answered. ‘Forgive me 
for speaking of him.” 

She told me that she was glad I spoke of him. She had 
heard of his strange life, but had never seen him since the 
war and her visit to America. He had sent her a message 
which had frightened her, but she had never answered it. 
Did I think he was mad? 

“Madness is difficult to define,” I said, and she nodded in 
agreement when I added that by the modern code of life he 
seemed quite mad, though in earlier times men like Francis 
of Assisi and other saints had embraced poverty and beggary 
in just that way for their soul’s sake. 

“In Rassia,” said Kakoshka, “it was a kind of fashion 
before the revolution, among young men of noble families. 
They went back to peasant life and found some joy in its 
misery. Strange! I escaped from that life and look back on 
it with terror. The dirt of poverty is so terrible and its 


78 Little Novels of N owadays 


ugliness so enslaving. Now I need the beauty that only 
wealth can bring. Perhaps I have lost my soul as the devil’s 
price for that. It is what Hans said in his message to 
Ties 

“There’s virtue in beauty,” I said, to comfort her a little, 
for she was still visibly distressed. “Your grace is a gift to 
life:*. 

She smiled at me and shook her head. 

“Virtue and I are not joined in holy matrimony. I am a 
dancing girl. It would be better if I were starving with my 
peasant folk in the village of Lubimovka on the Volga—more 
honest.” 

She was immensely sad while she spoke those words, and 
yet in her volatile way she changed a second afterwards and 
laughed with a kind of bitterness. 

“T do not quarrel with my way of life. And Hans von 
Menzel is mad—incurably mad, poor boy!” 

She put her hand on mine and spoke in a kind of whisper. 

“All the same, I want to see him once again. He was my 
lover, you understand? And I loved his love and his beauty 
of youth and his sulkiness. When he went to the war I for- 
got him—lI have no loyalty. But now I want to see him again. 
You will tell him so?” 

“T don’t know him,” I said. 

“You will take a message from me,” she answered, with a 
touch of command in her voice. 

“What message?” 

She thought for a moment and said: “ ‘Kakoshka searches 
for the meaning of eternal love. Only you can teach her that? 
Tell him this and bring him to my garden on Wannsee. You 
promise?” 

“If I see him again I will give him your message.” 

She gave me some details of how to find her garden on the 
lake, and that was all the conversation we had. 

A tall, shaven-headed German, who, young Wendell told 
me afterwards, was a notorious Schieber, or war profiteer, 
enormously rich, came over to kiss her hand. Other people, 
impatient of my monopoly, spoiled my chance of private talk. 
Presently she danced again, and then left the Monico with a 


The Beggar of Berlin 79 


party of Russians and the tall German, with a wave of the 
hand to me. 

I had told Kakoshka that I was in Berlin to study the 
human nature of Germans after the war, and to try to solve 
the riddle of their mentality. That was true, and for a week 
or two I pursued my inquiries earnestly enough, with only an 
occasional thought of the little Russian lady and her former 
lover, Hans von Menzel. 

Berlin and all Germany were in a state of panic at that 
time, waiting the decision of the Reparations Commission on 
the subject of a moratorium for their debts to the Allies, and 
expecting France to take new and drastic measures to enforce 
payment by a control of mines and forests. There was a 
general belief that such action would bring Germany down 
with a crash, and the communication of this terror—for it 
amounted to that—led to a wild selling of marks in New York 
and London and all the exchanges of the world, so that they 
fell as low as eleven thousand to the English pound. Yet 
undoubtedly the main cause of this financial disaster was the 
reason given by my friendly waiter in the Hotel Wotan—the 
mad output of paper money from the Government printing 
presses, followed by the instant raising of wages and prices 
and new issues of notes to keep pace with them, in a vicious 
circle that had become wild and whirling. 

Now, prices were soaring above all competition with wages, 
and the Government was faced with the frightful possibility 
that the false paper money could no longer buy the grain 
needed from abroad to feed the people, or the coal to keep 
them warm in the coming winter, or the wool to clothe them. 

Some riots had happened already in the poorer suburbs of 
Berlin, the people were smashing up the markets because of 
the price of butter and cheese, and I heard many prophecies 
from many people in different classes that unless Germany 
obtained an international loan to bolster up her rotten finan- 
cial state there would be widespread trouble in the coming 
winter. 

This is dull stuff to thrust into the story I am telling, yet 
one must understand that state of things in Berlin in order 
to see how it was reflected in the extraordinary character of 


80 Little Novels of Nowadays 


that young man, Hans von Menzel, and the new cult of which 
he was, to some extent, the prophet. I can see now that his 
madness, if one can call it that, was a direct outcome of the 
state of Germany, brought to the ruin of her pride and power 
by forces of evil and corruption in the soul of the nation, as 
all Europe, indeed, was menaced by the same forces of 
destruction and decay from the same causes. Knowing in his 
body and soul what kind of war had been made by hate, this 
young man set out to preach love in a kind of sacrificial way. 
Beholding the failure and dishonesty of all that financial 
system upon which German civilisation had been based, 
brought home to him, no doubt, by his father’s life and death, 
and the disease which had now overtaken it, he had become 
a preacher of poverty, and found a strange sweetness and 
purity in hunger and nakedness and beggary. He stood, 
madly, no doubt, against all those forces of reaction and 
militarism—goose-steppings and parades at Munich, secret 
organisations of ex-officers, propaganda for the next war 
against France—which I found existing still in certain classes 
of German mentality. 

That, anyhow, is how I read the riddle of this young man, 
whom I have called the Beggar of Berlin, when I met him and 
had talk with him in a place called Pfaueninsel, meaning 
Peacocks’ Island, on the lakes outside Berlin known as the 
Wannsee. 

That is a favourite spot of holiday makers who can escape 
from the summer heat of Berlin, and wonderfully wild and 
free, though only an hour or less from the city. The chain 
of lakes reaches out from Potsdam, and is encircled by dark 
woods, of which the one nearest to Berlin is the beautiful 
Grtinewald, larger than Windsor Forest, perhaps, though not 
so splendid in ancient trees. 

It was on a Saturday afternoon that I went to Wannsee by 
train from the Potsdamer Bahnhof and to the Pfaueninsel— 
Peacocks’ Island—by boat. 

The white steamer was crowded with small boys and girls 
belonging, perhaps, to some big school or group of schools, 
poorly dressed, but spotlessly clean, as all German children 
are; and to my eyes, no longer blinded by war passion—to 


The Beggar of Berlin 81 


tell the truth, I was never much blinded, having been too 
close to the fighting front—they looked like fairy-book chil- 
dren of whom I used to read in Grimm’s tales—was it a 
thousand years ago?—such as Hansel and Gretel, and Little 
Red Riding Hood, and the princes and princesses of my child- 
hood’s dreams. 

Here they were in the flesh, with their blue eyes and their 
straw-coloured hair, and the beauty of innocence and grace in 
them. They munched little slices of bread and rosy-cheeked 
apples from secret stores in their satchels, and went dancing 
and singing off the boat at the landing stage of Peacocks’ 
Island, where other crowds of children had already gathered. 
Here they went wandering into the woods, or to the lawns 
where the famous peacocks strutted, showing the majesty of 
their tails, where the little ones joined hands and played sing- 
ing games, watched by their mothers and teachers. A pleas- 
ant sight, which I left for a while to have tea in a woodland 
chalet. 

It was after that, as the afternoon shadows were lengthen- 
ing over the lawns, that I heard a little tune being played on 
a tin whistle somewhere beneath the trees. 

I followed the sound of it, which was now familiar to me, 
and presently found that strange musician, Count Hans von 
Menzel, sitting under an oak tree, piping to a crowd of chil- 
dren who sat in a ring around him. 

As a reward for his tune he asked for a piece of bread. 
Instantly scores of little hands fumbled in their haversacks 
and then held out slices of bread, while shrill cries rang out 
of “Nehmen Sie diesses!”’ “Take this one!” 

He chose his piece from the smallest of the boys ; and then, 
while he munched it, he told the children an old fairy tale 
which kept them spellbound. I only heard the last words he 
spoke. 

“So you see,” he said, “that the fairies do not like men and 
women who quarrel with each other, and they keep all their 
gifts for those who love their neighbours. The fairies tell 
me that is true in all parts of the world to-day. Our poor 
Germany is nearly ruined because we hated our neighbours 
and they hated us. Unless we kill hatred in our hearts, like 


82 Little Novels of Nowadays 


the boy who killed the dragon, we shall all be plagued like 
those poor folk in my tale.” 

“T shall always hate the French,” said a small boy. 

“And I shall always hate the English,” said another. 

“When I grow up, I want to be a soldier like my father, 
and take revenge upon our enemies,” said the third boy who 
spoke. 

A shadow seemed to pass over the face of Hans von 
Menzel, though he sat where the sunlight fell through the 
leaves upon him. 

“Then the good fairies will die in Germany and leave our 
dreadful world,” he said. 

“Play to us again!” shouted the children, but he shook his 
head sadly and said: “You have made me forget my best 
tunes to-day. But I thank you for your piece of bread, little 
mice. To-morrow I will play again to you, when my tunes 
come back.” | 

“But we shall not be here to-morrow!” said a little girl. 

“No; that is true,” he said. ‘“‘We shall none of us be here 
to-morrow. How sad that is! Then I must play to you now 
my little tune that puts love in the heart if you listen very 
quietly.” 

It was a sweet, sad thing he played on his tin whistle, and 
then it changed quickly to a dance, and all the little ones 
sprang up and took hands and went whirling round. After 
that the young man kissed his hand to them and went away 
into the wood, where I followed him. We came face to face 
in a glade where he stood leaning on his stick and staring at 
some little white flowers in the thin grass. . 

“Good day,” I said, and at this greeting he looked up at 
me and smiled in a friendly way. 

“Good day, brother. I think we met in the great city? 
This quiet wood is better. Do you care to sit and talk?” 

He sat down on the bank, with his long stick between 
his knees, and made a courteous gesture for me to sit beside 
him. Although he dressed like a beggar, he had a fine 
manner, 

He talked perfectly sanely, and spoke to me at first about 
England, his mother’s country, which he had known well 


The Beggar of Berlin 83 


before the war. He loved the old cathedral towns, especially 
Canterbury and York, and thought the pleasantest places on 
earth were the English gardens he had known. ‘Then he 
referred to the war, and said the Germans and English 
should never have fought each other. It was the greatest 
crime in history, he thought. 

“Not our crime,’ I said; “we did not desire the war.” 

“True,” he said. “Your people were innocent. But not 
your politicians and those who controlled your foreign 
policy and your world markets. Our military caste—to which 
I belonged for a time—were the direct agents of the war, 
poor crazy men! But all Europe was an armed camp, di- 
vided into hostile groups for the protection of wealth, in 
deadly rivalry. England is not so guiltless as she thinks. 
Her statesmen supported this system and knew the risks of 
it to their people, and did not tell them. . . . But in this 
wood there are better things to talk about. How delightful 
is the scent of the pine needles!” 

After that we spoke of books, and especially of Shake- 
speare, whose works he knew by heart, I think. 

“T am like the melancholy Jaques,’ he said, “making a 
moral of life under the greenwood tree. Perhaps also like 
the fool 1’ the forest whom he found so ‘deep-contemplative.’ 


“‘T must have liberty 
Withal, as large a charter as the wind, 
To blow on whom I please; for so fools have; 
And they that are most galled with my folly, 
They most must laugh 


“Why do you live like this?” I asked. ‘Surely there is 
better work for you to do than a beggar’s job!” 

He laughed, and then was thoughtful, and poked his stick 
into the ground and stared at it. 

“You think I’m mad,” he said, “as most people do. But 
there is a method in my madness. I want to save my people, 
and myself first. The only way is the old way, a simple 
faith in God and in the beauty of His works in this good 
earth. There is no other way of salvation, and it is not to 
be found in wealth and industrial power, but in poverty and 
humility. The German people are going to be poor. I think 


84 _ Little Novels of Nowadays 


all European people are going to be poor, because the death 
of the industrial era has been declared, and the cities will 
perish—as they deserve. I want to teach our people how 
to be poor bravely; how to regain their spiritual wealth 
when they are ruined; how to possess all things when they 
have nothing. It’s an old creed, not my own. But for that 
I have become a beggar, sleeping in the woods at night, or 
wandering homeless in the streets of Berlin, dependent for 
my life on casual charity. But not lazy! Everywhere I tell 
old tales and play old tunes which have this message in 
them. I mean the message of love and childlike faith. Here 
and there, in a street or a glade, I may drop a seed in some 
young heart which will grow big with the power of the 
spirit when I have passed away. That is my madness, and 
it is a flame in me.” 

“There were saints who were mad like that,” I said, and 
at that he coloured deeply, and told me he was no saint, but 
rotten with the evil he had done in the world. 

It was at the end of a silence that fell upon us both that 
I said, “I have a message for you—from a friend in your 
former life.” 

“Does any one of them remember me with friendship?’ 
he asked. “Who is that?” 

“‘Kakoshka,” I told him. 

At that name he started violently and became as pale as 
she had done when I had spoken his name to her. 

“T have forgotten that name,” he said harshly. “It has 
passed out of mind and heart, by God’s grace.” 

“T promised to deliver her message,” I persisted. 

“T won't hear it,” he said stubbornly. 

But. I told him the message. 

““Kakoshka searches for the meaning of eternal love. 
Only you can teach her that.’ ” 

He was profoundly disturbed, and sat there, thrusting his 
stick into the loose earth with a kind of anger and anguish. 

“Tt’s a trick,” he said presently, in a low voice. “She sets 
a trap before my feet. That woman wants to lure me back 
to my old way of life. I know her treachery, the lie in her 
soul.” 


The Beggar of Berlin 85 


“T’m not so sure,’ I told him. “She remembers your 
love as the great joy of her life.” 

“Our love?” he said. “Oh, God!” 

He laughed with a kind of harsh irony. 

“She has some honesty,” I protested; “the simplicity of a 
peasant girl, in spite of her life of luxury.” 

“It’s her pose,” he said bitterly. “She would lure a saint 
to hell with her child eyes.” 

“Anyhow, she’s not happy,” I told him, and I repeated 
those words she spoke to me: “ ‘It would be better if I were 
starving with my peasant folk in the village of Lubimovka.’ ” 

Those words startled him. 

“Did she say that?’ he asked. “If so, it was true. It 
would be better for her a thousand times. You are sure 
those were her words?” 

“The very words she used.” 

“If I could help her’—he said, and then broke off his 
sentence and cried out, “No! I dare not let her speak to 
me! She’s a liar in her very soul!” 

“TI know her less than you,” I said, “but I think better 
pe eer. 

I wonder, even now, why I argued with him on behalf of 
Kakoshka. She was nothing to me, nothing more than the 
pleasant memory of an Atlantic voyage and a little picture 
of dancing grace. Yet by some trick of mentality I made 
myself a pleader for her with Hans von Menzel. Perhaps 
it was to test his strength and to probe his weakness, as a 
study of human nature, which to me is a problem of inex- 
haustible interest. Perhaps some deeper subconscious motive 
which I do not understand impelled me to bring these two 
people face to face again. 

“She has a garden sloping down to the Wannsee,” I said. 
“In a boat I could row you there in twenty minutes. Per- 
haps some word from you would be like a light to her. It 
might be worth your while to speak that word.” 

“No,” he said; “no, I’ve been well rid of her.” 

He walked away into the woods without a farewell to me, 
and I went back to the landing stage to wait for the next 
steamer back to Wannsee. I should never see a meeting 


86 Little Novels of Nowadays 


between Hans von Menzel and Kakoshka, but I had deliv- 
ered the message and so had fulfilled my promise. 

Ten minutes later he stood by my side. 

“Take me to her garden,” he said. “It’s »God’s will, I 
think.” | 

Kakoshka had told me where her garden lay. It sloped 
down from her house on the eastern side of the yacht club 
which could be seen from the Wannsee landing stage. I 
hired a boat and rowed, while Hans von Menzel held the 
rudder lines. Only once I spoke to him on the way. 

“Tt is, after all, none of my business,” I said. “I’m only 
a messenger.” 

“Bestimmt,’ he said, meaning that he agreed to that, and 
using the only German word which he spoke during our 
whole conversation that afternoon. 

I pulled the boat alongside a private landing stage at which 
a little motor. launch was moored. I was sure of the place, 
because the launch had the name of Lubimovka. It was 
Kakoshka’s Russian village, far away on the Volga, a very 
world away from her present life. 

It was now late in the afternoon, and the sunlight was 
very golden and glamorous in that lakeside garden and all 
around. Beyond a fringe of willows was a sloping lawn as 
smooth as velvet, with a border of flower beds of rich 
colour. Not far away from the water’s edge was a little 
white summer house, and near it was a hammock swung 
low between two silver firs. At the sound of the splash of 
my oars and the boat gliding among the reeds the hammock 
swayed, and a little figure in a white frock stood suddenly 
between the trees, looking towards us. For a few moments 
she stood quite motionless, and then came down the sloping 
lawn to the water’s edge with a cry of “Hans!” 

He stepped out of the boat and stood on the edge of the 
lawn before her, but not looking at her. He bent his head 
as he leaned on his tall stick and spoke to her in German: 

“You sent me a message, and I have come against my 
will. What is it you have to say to me?” 

She said, “There are a thousand things to say between 
you and me.” 


The Bertie of Berlin 87, 


“Not of the past,’ he told her. “That is dead in my 
mind. JI am no longer what I was then, but a different 
man. You see this dress of mine? It’s a beggar’s way of 
dress. I’m a wandering tramp. What do you want with 
me?” 

“TI want you to tell me the truth,’ she said; “the truth 
about this life and the death that follows.” 

For a moment he was silent, and I think it was for the 
first time he looked at her. 

“The truth,” he said slowly, “will hurt you as though I 
should tear your heart out or the beauty from your bones. 
Have you the courage to hear that from me?” : 

“TI have asked for the truth,” said Kakoshka, “and I have 
courage, as you know.” 

She said she had courage, but she was white to the lips, 
and was, I am certain, afraid of this man who once had 
loved her. 

She moved away from him to the summer house, and he 
followed her at some sign she gave, and went inside with 
her. 

It must have been an hour before Hans von Menzel came 
out again. I could hear the murmur of their voices, but not 
a word they said. Once it sounded to me as though one 
of them were weeping, and it was not Kakoshka, but a 
man’s agony. Several times the woman’s voice rose 
high and shrill, as though she were speaking passion- 
ately. 

More than once there was a long silence between them. 
Then, at the end, Kakoshka laughed, and it was not a 
pleasant sound of laughter, but rather cruel, I thought, with 
mockery. Whether she mocked at him or at herself I do 
not know, and shall never know. 

He came out of the summer house alone, and his face had 
the look of a man escaped from a torture chamber. He 
strode swiftly across the lawn, pushed his way through the 
overhanging willows, and, getting into the boat, said, “Take 
me back,” as though I were his hired man. 

At the Wannsee landing stage he turned to me with a look 
of deep melancholy. 


88 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“T have smashed a butterfly,” he said, “and it was a cruel 
thing, even for God’s sake.” 

Then, with a gesture of farewell, the walked towards the 
darkening woods. 

That was the last I saw of the Beggar of Berlin, as I 
have called him. My visit to Germany ended abruptly, and 
it was in England that I heard the latest news of him. That 
was from young Wendell, the American journalist, whom I 
happened to meet some weeks ago in the grill room of the 
Savoy. 

“How’s Germany?” J asked, and he told me that there 
had been an epidemic of food riots, some of which had led 
to bloodshed. 

“The government printing presses had made marks drop 
down like autumn leaves,” he said. “A fatal policy, as any 
fool could see.” 

Then suddenly, in his account of things, he mentioned 
the name of Hans von Menzel. 

“T guess you never heard of that guy. Perfectly mad, in 
my opinion. Dressed like a beggar, and lived like one, but 
with a queer hold over the people. They say he’s the only 
man in Germany who can keep the masses quiet and pre- 
vent the hoisting of the red flag. He preaches some new 
form of brotherly love, or the same old bunk.’ Anyhow, the 
Government fears him, and chases him; one of those freaks 
that are thrown up in times of chaos. Well, here’s to good 
business !”” 

“What’s happened to that little dancer?” I asked. “Do 
you remember ?—Kakoshka—that night at the Monico.” 

“Why, that’s another story,” he said. “She had the world 
at her feet in the dancing line. German profiteers lined up 
to kiss her hands. She could have her pick of them. What 
do you think she did?” 

“Couldn’t give a guess,” I told him. 

“No; it isn’t easy. Well, I'll tell you. She went back to 
Russia and nursed typhus-stricken babies on the Volga. 
Needless to say, she caught the plague and died of it. As 
_ pretty a kid as ever I saw, and the jolliest little dancer— 
like a butterfly in the sunshine.” 


The Beggar of Berlin 89 


It was strange that he should have used that image. I 
remembered the words of Hans von Menzel—“I have 
smashed a butterfly, and it was a cruel thing, even for 
God’s sake.” 

Perhaps all the time Kakoshka knew that her fate was 
with her peasant folk in Lubimovka. 


IV: A BARGAIN IN THE KREMLIN 


T is two years now since the Russian violinist, Anton 

Balakireff, became the idol of the music-loving world in 
London for one brief season, after his first appearance at 
the Queen’s Hall. I suppose most people remember the 
newspaper accounts of the ovations he received, the storming 
of the platform by English as well as Russian women, who 
kissed his hands—with their broken finger nails—while he 
stood there, shy, sulky, almost sullen, with a lock of black 
hair flopping over his broad forehead, and a queer, moody 
smile in his rather deep-sunken eyes. 

“An astonishing performer,” said the critics, marvellously 
unanimous for once. “A genius in technique,’ wrote one 
of them. “Surely inspired in his own compositions by that 
wild, tragic, haunting music which is in the very soul of the 
Slav race.” 

Well, I don’t know much about that, not being a musical 
critic; but I happen to know—as few do—why this young 
man came to England from Moscow, and the terms of his 
contract for that season at the Queen’s Hall. 

The story is worth telling, because it reveals something 
of the life of Russia under the Soviet Republic. Also it is 
the story of the secret agony suffered by this man when he 
was being féted and hero-worshipped by Russian and Eng- 
lish society in London; an agony of temptation which made 
a coward of him, as I fancy it would have tempted most 
men, however brave, to cowardice, and perhaps to dishonour. 

He told me the whole thing himself, with permission to 
write it for him as an explanation of his abominable rude- 
ness at times to English friends. 

I doubt whether any but a Russian could have been so 
frank in self-analysis, so deeply interested in his own emo- 
tions under stress of fear, racial love and passion for the 

90 


—_— 


A Bargain in the Kremlin BEM 


one woman who meant more to him than music—meant 
music to him, perhaps. 

He played first violin in the Moscow Opera House, and 
occasional pieces of his own, by permission of the Soviet 
Committee, at Sunday concerts to school children, trade 
unionists and others. His reputation as a violinist had saved 
his life at the time of the terror, when he was arrested with 
hundreds of other young men and brought before the cheka 
—the extraordinary commission—on a charge of conspiring 
against the Soviet Republic. 

As a matter of fact, he was at that time, he tells me, 
utterly innocent of any political act. Intellectually he had 
favoured the Kerensky revolution and the overthrow of 
Tsardom, like most young men of liberal ideas in Russia, 
but while this history was happening he had remained a 
student of music, shutting out the cruelties of life as far as 
possible by writing an opera in the bed-sitting-room of an 
apartment house in the Sophie-skaya, where he had gone to 
live after the escape of his father and mother from Russia, 
soon after the peace of Brest-Litovski. 

“Why didn’t you go with them?” I asked. 

He shrugged his shoulders and gave me reasons which I 
thought ridiculous. 

“I didn’t want to smash my violin in overcrowded trains ; 
and I detested my father, who had never been sympathetic 
to my fiddler’s life and free ideas. He was a cavalry gen- 
eral, you understand.” 

As the son of General Balakireff, who had commanded the 
Tsar’s Imperial Hussars, this young man—twenty-five when 
Lenin became president of the Soviet Central Committee— 
had a precious poor chance of life in the days of terror. 
From his prison men of less notable family, ex-officers, ordi- 
nary students, clerks and merchants, or sons of merchants, 
were taken out in batches, or singly, and shot for no other 
crime that that of belonging to the hated bourgeoisie. Some 
of them, it is true, had been involved in counter-revolu- 
tionary plots; and others, like most Russians at that time, 
were politicians with wild theories of freedom and self- 
government which were not in agreement with Lenin’s new 


92 Little Novels of Nowadays 


system of despotism. But it made very little difference’ what 
their views had been. The examining committee of the 
extraordinary commission—commonly called the cheka— 
mostly made up of fanatical young communists animated by 
fear of counter-revolution and by a blind hatred of anybody 
tainted with the social influence of the old régime, were re- 
gardless of evidence and ruthless of human life, at least 
during that worst period of the terror. 

Anton’s description of his prison days made my flesh 
creep. He spared me no details of horror—the lack of sani- 
tary arrangements in his room, where fifty of his fellow 
prisoners were herded, the agony of those who became 
stricken with typhus, the despair and delirium which seized 
those who were terror-stricken by the prospect of being shot 
like dogs against the red brick wall in the courtyard outside, 
the religious mania of one man who shrieked at devilish 
apparitions, the blasphemies of others, the tears of boys 
younger than Anton, the careless .courage of a few who 
defied death itself with a shrug of the shoulders and scorn- 
ful words. Terrible! 

Anton was sent for at night by the cheka. He tells me 
that when that summons came fear seized him in so strong 
a clutch that he could hardly rise from the boards where he 
had been lying asleep, and his legs seemed paralysed. 

One of the red soldiers hit him a blow with the butt end 
of his rifle, and that angered him so that he was less fright- 
ened, and regained the use of his limbs. 

“Rage is a good cure for fear,” he told me. 

One of the prisoners, an elderly man, who had been Pro- 
fessor of Zoology in the University of Moscow, embraced 
him and kissed him on both cheeks. 

“Dos vidanya!’ he said, meaning “Au revoir!’ “As a 
musician you ought to have no fear of death, little brother. 
On the other side there will be eternal music.” 

Anton had his violin in the prison, which he sometimes 
played to his fellow prisoners by permission of his jailers, 
who grinned and tapped the stone floor with heel and toe 
when he played little old dance tunes. He grabbed it now - 
and carried it under his arm with his bow, and the two 


A Bargain in the Kremlin 93 


guards who were taking him before the cheka did not forbid 
him. It was his idea to ask one plea of his executioners— 
to let him hold this old fiddle of his when he stood before 
the firing party. It would give him more courage to face 
death, he thought. 

“Courage is mostly pride,” he told me, when he described 
the episode. “I’ve seen a fellow put on a medal to be shot. 
And others have brushed their clothes and combed their 
hair. One poor fool killed fear a little by reciting a sonnet 
he had written—the most miserable trash! It gave him a 
sense of superiority to the louts who killed him.” 

The examining committee of the cheka were in a big room 
which had once been the conference room of an insurance 
office, with polished desks and tables—not at all the sort of 
place one might expect as the headquarters of the Russian 
terror. 

There were about eight young men seated at a long table, 
smoking cigarettes and whispering to each other. The presi- 
dent of the committee was a more elderly man—though only 
middle-aged—with a broad, flat face, fringed by a reddish 
beard, and gold-rimmed spectacles. It was a man named 
Radeff, commonly called Redbeard, and famous afterwards 
as chief of revolutionary propaganda in foreign countries. 

He spoke first, after a glance at Anton Balakireff, stand- 
ing between the two red soldiers, with his violin under his 
arm, his black hair all tousled, his face and hands dirty after 
three weeks in prison without means of washing, and his 
clothes covered with the dust from the prison floor boards. 

“Who is this young man?” asked Radeff in a voice that 
was not unkindly. 

One of the young men read out his name. 

“Anton Balakireff, son of Boris Balakireff, one time gen- 
eral of imperial cavalry and notorious leader of counter- 
revolution in enemy countries.” 

“We are trying the son, not the father,” said Radeff, with 
a chuckle as though he spoke a jest. 

One of the committee answered him. 

“The son has his father’s blood, poisoned with the vice of 
the old bourgeoisie.” 


94 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“That’s true,’ answered the man with the red ‘beard. 
“Bad blood, certainly! Any evidence against this young 
man?” 

One of the committee wetted a dirty forefinger and turned | 
over some typewritten sheets. 

Anton told me that the sound of those sheets being turned 
over seemed to change his blood to water, though he cannot 
understand the reason for that psychological effect. He 
thinks his terror was associated, perhaps, with his school 
days, when he used to stand before the headmaster of the 
high school in Kazan while his weeks’ reports were being 
read. . 

There was nothing much against him in this secret dossier. 
It gave the details of his parentage, educational career, mu- 
sical distinctions, and enumerated several of his friends, 
some of whom had already been shot for counter-revolu- 
tionary acts or opinions. 

““A bad record,” said one member of the committee. He 
was a young man of the mechanic class, it seemed, and his 
hands were still begrimed as though by the toil he had now 
abandoned for the work of terror. “We’ve heard enough. 
Why waste time?” 

The other men nodded, and one drew forward a printed 
sheet which Anton guessed was the order for execution. 
Obviously his two guards thought so, for they straightened 
themselves up as though making ready to march him out, 

The man named Radeff held up a plump white hand and 
smiled through his gold-rimmed spectacles. 

“One moment, comrades. I have an amusing idea about 
this young man. It appears from his record that he won 
the highest prize for the violin at the Moscow Academy of 
Music. I confess that softens me towards him. As an 
amateur——’” 

He made a comical gesture, as though drawing a bow over 
a violin, and then laughed loudly. 

The three young men smiled, but the other members of 
the committee remained grim and sullen, and one of them 
said, ‘“We waste time.”’ 

“No,” said Radeff; “I am thinking of our comrade Rosen- 


A Bargain in the Kremlin 95 


dorff. He is organising the orchestra of the opera which he 
proposes to re-open in order to give the proletariat the ad- 
vantages of music that were formerly enjoyed by the capi- 
talist classes. An admirable idea. I approve of it most 
heartily. It occurs to me this young man might be useful 
in the orchestra—if he can really play. Of course, if he 
can’t———”’ 

He made a gesture as though raising a rifle to his shoulder, 
and then laughed again, and beamed at the committee through 
his gold-rimmed spectacles. 

The three young men whispered together and looked at 
Anton, who had not been asked to speak a single word 
hitherto, but stood there white and terror-stricken between 
the two red soldiers. 

“Play something,” said one of them. “You have heard 
what our comrade has said? It’s a chance for you, perhaps. 
Soviet Russia wishes to encourage the arts.” 

“Yes,” said the red-bearded man unctuously. ‘“We’re not 
in revolt against beauty, young man. On the contrary, we 
will demonstrate to capitalist countries that the noblest art 
is born from the soul of a free communistic people. Play!” 

He lit a cigarette and sat back in his chair as though pre- 
paring to enjoy himself with an amusing and agreeable inter- 
lude in the more serious busirless of the extraordinary com- 
mission. 

“What shall I play?” asked Anton. 

It was the first time he had spoken before his judges, and 
his voice was weak and hollow. 

He told me that in these moments a sense of pride was 
in conflict with a sense of fear, so that his heart was beat-~ 
ing wildly. He would show these fellows that he knew 
something about the violin! But fear threatened to destroy 
the power within him, to make him incapable of producing 
a single note. As he raised the bow it trembled as though 
he had the palsy. 

“As you like,” said Redbeard, as he called Radeff. “I 
warn you I’m a severe critic.” 

A severe critic! The silly imbecile was probably ignorant 
of the rudiments of music, with no more ear than an old 


96 Little Novels of Nowadays 


cow, and less soul than the brass inkpot on the desk in front 
of him. It was that scorn for his words that gave Anton 
courage. Pride again, as he said. He drew his bow across 
the strings with a strong, almost violent stroke, the first note 
of a piece he had written just before his arrest—a thing he 
had called Russian History. 

It was harsh, ugly stuff at the beginning, with a sugges- 
tion of primitive savagery when the early Russians—the 
Scythians of Greek days—swept into Asia with Darius the 
Persian on shaggy horses, with wild war cries. That was 
his idea, though it didn’t matter very much, he said, so long 
as one caught the harshness and brutality of its spirit, and 
the quick, vital rhythm of it. After that he wove in a fan- 
tasy on the early folk songs and dances of his race as he 
had heard them as a boy in Kazan among the Tartars and 
the Volga peasants. They, too, were coarse and rough, 
though with a merry, vulgar lilt to them. 

It was when he was playing that part that he saw Red- 
beard, as he called him, lolling back in his chair, wagging 
his beard from side to side, and tapping the arm of his chair 
with his plump fingers. 

“Oh-ho, my old fellow!” thought Anton. “So you like 
it, do you? It calls to your peasant soul. You’d look well 
in sheepskins, dancing to my tune by the old manure heap.” 

He was not bothered with fear now. His music had got 
hold of him, and he had a queer idea that he was putting 
this Redbeard to the test. All very well to wag his head to 
that folk stuff. But wait a minute! How about the adagio 
suggesting the story of Russian serfdom, the misery of a 
great people hungry, enslaved, scraping a bare life out of 
the soil, seeing their children die? He had put in a kind of 
song, a woman’s lamentation to her dead baby. Nothing 
pretty in it; no sickly sentiment; just the raw stuff of the 
human heart wailing out its agony. There were some fright- 
ful notes in it, harsh as hell. What about old Redbeard 
now? 

Well, he seemed to understand. He had his mouth open 
a little and was breathing through it. There was a kind of 
pity in his eyes. The others were silent and motionless, but 


A Bargain in the Kremlin 97 


Anton did not see them. His eyes were fixed on Redbeard. 
He did some eighteenth-century stuff, hinting at court life, 
civilisation in ballrooms, silks and satins moving in a minuet. 
Then he skipped some movements and plunged into war and 
all its fury. Probably old Redbeard wouldn’t understand 
what he was driving at—all the wild stuff and frenzied bow 
work—a pyrotechnic display on the fiddle, pretty good as 
technique, anyhow. 

“Then,” said Anton, “I forgot old Redbeard and the 
cheka, and that red wall waiting for me. I played the 
tragedy of human life—Russia’s agony, if you like—of any 
kind of damned soul crying out to God, who seems deaf. 
It’s the best I’ve done. That cry of pain rising out of the 
depths would freeze the blood of a war profiteer. But, of 
course, it takes a Russian to understand. You English Ks 

Anyhow, it seemed that Redbeard understood. There 
were tears in his eyes, trickling down his flabby cheeks. 
When Anton dropped his bow and stood there trembling in 
every limb—fear had rushed back after he had played the 
last note—Redbeard clapped his hands and was strangely 
excited. | 

“Prodigious!” he cried in a harsh voice. “This boy plays 
like a devil or an archangel!” 

The three young men nodded and spoke in low tones to 
one another. They, too, understood music, like all their race. 
Even the other men looked more human and less like judges. 
Redbeard whispered to them and Anton heard him speak 
the name of Rosendorff, the Director of Public Education 
on the Central Executive Committee. Then he turned to 
Anton, thrusting his fingers through the hair that fringed 
his face. 

“We're not going to shoot you this time, young man! 
We'll keep you for better things. How would you like to 
play in the orchestra at the Soviet opera?” 

Anton was speechless. This reprieve was like a miracle. 
He had great difficulty in keeping from swooning. 

One of the young men wrote something on a sheet of 
paper and handed it to one of the red soldiers. 

“This man is free,” he said. 


98 Little Novels of Nowadays 


One of the cheka offered Anton a cigarette. : 

“Certainly you play the violin,” he said condescendingly. 

Redbeard, who had risen from his chair, laid his hand 
on Anton’s shoulder. 

“I’m going to keep an eye on you, little comrade! I'll 
come to hear you when you're first violin at the opera. Now 
go home and practise like a good boy, and above all avoid 
politics!’ He patted Anton’s shoulder again. “That fiddle 
of yours has saved your life, little brother. Cherish it! 
Work hard with it! The Soviet Republic will give you full 
rations in return for your talent. We recognise merit even 
in the son of an imperial general!” 

He laughed heartily, as though at a good jest. 

A red soldier touched Anton on the arm. He moistened | 
his lips to speak, but could utter nothing. He bowed and 
left the room between the two soldiers. | 

Outside in the corridor was an elderly man between two 
other guards. As Anton passed him he smiled and said, 
“Farewell, comrade. In a few minutes I shall join you 
with God.” 

“I’m free!” said Anton, and he told me that at that mo- 
ment to this poor man going before the cheka he felt 
ashamed, and even sorry, to confess that he had been re- 
prieved. It seemed like treachery, and the man thought so. 

“Then you are a traitor,’ he said sternly. “You have 
given your friends away. May the curse of God ne 

One of the red soldiers struck him across the mouth. 

Without going back to the room where he had been im- 
prisoned, Anton was set at liberty; and it was only when 
he found himself in the street, with a cold wind blowing in 
his face, that he realised the thing that had happened to him 
—the gift of life! He told me that he blubbered like a 
schoolboy after a hard flogging. 

“A strange creature I must have looked,” he said, “slink- 
ing across the Red Square under the Kremlin walls, without 
an overcoat, with my violin tucked under my ragged jacket, 
my hair all powdered with snow and my dirty face smeared 
with silly tears. Some peasants wrapped up to the ears in 


A Bargain in the Kremlin 99 


sheepskins stared at me as they passed, and then crossed 
themselves as though they saw a devil.” 

Well, that was his first escape. He had a narrow shave 
afterwards when he was really guilty of being involved in a 
political plot for the overthrow of the Soviet Government. 
That was two years later, and in my opinion an act of mad- 
ness on the part of that young Russian. 

The terror had subsided, and the cheka, with its army of 
secret police, no longer arrested people wholesale for po- 
litical conspiracy or sentenced them to death for counter- 
revolution. The truth was that they had broken the spirit 
of counter-revolution. The chance of success was so remote, 
the risk of discovery and death so certain for anybody who 
challenged the authority of Lenin and the Soviets, that these 
things were not worth while. 

To be just also, it is certain from what I myself heard in 
Russia that the invasion of the white armies under Kolchak, 
Denikin, Wrangel, and others, backed by France and Great 
Britain, and defeated one after another by Trotzky and his 
red armies, consolidated the power of the Soviet Republic 
by gaining the sympathy of the peasants and even of the 
intellectuals. The last thing in the world the peasants de- 
sired was the return of the whites, who would restore the 
old estates to their former owners; and the intellectuals, half 
starved as they were, and utterly disgusted for the most part 
with the communistic régime, had a racial pride which re- 
volted against the invasion of Russian soil by rabble armies, 
financed, armed and paid by foreign nations. I think also 
that many of the old bourgeoisie who still remained alive in 
Russia, despite the tide of flight, the executions, hunger, 
disease and misery, had reached the conviction that another 
counter-revolution, and even the overthrow of the Soviet 
Government, which they hated, would only lead to fresh 
chaos, a new reign of bloodshed and the utter smash of all 
order in Russia, which would be unbearable. Much as they 
loathed the system of communism, they acknowledged that 
the Soviet Government was running the machinery of the 
state with something like order, had established peace within 


100 Little Novels of Nowadays 


its frontiers, and was abandoning its cruelties—after the first 
delirium of revolution—in favour of a ‘really desperate at- 
tempt to maintain the life of the Russian people. It was 
not much, but it was something. 

Anton Balakireff acknowledged all this when he told me 
his tale, and he admitted that he was guilty of the utmost 
folly in letting himself be dragged into a ridiculous plot 
engineered by a group of artists who painted scenery and 
designed costumes for the opera and ballet. 

These young men and Anton himself, like the whole corps 
de ballet and the opera staff, were highly privileged, and 
even pampered, by the Soviet authorities in Moscow. While 
many of their friends were starving and freezing in un- 
warmed rooms during the winter months, unable to get a 
fourth part of the rations allowed by their food tickets— 
because of the failure of the harvest in the Volga Valley, 
and the resistance of the peasants to the requisition system 
—Anton and his comrades received as a rule their full sup- 
plies. It was meagre fare, but enough for life. Sometimes, 
indeed, they were treated to special distributions of choco- 
lates, and even to extra rations of meat, which were like 
gifts from the gods. 

The truth is that these artists, dancers and singers were 
the spoiled children of Soviet Russia. They belonged to 
the last sanctuary of light and beauty in this great empire 
of wretchedness, hunger, dirt and disease. They maintained 
an illusion of joy, well-being, intellectual and artistic prog- 
ress, which was fostered by the Soviet authorities partly for 
propaganda purposes, partly because of an almost childlike 
vanity and pretence—they liked the world to believe, and 
to believe themselves, that they were idealists with a rever- 
ence for art—partly because many of those commissars in 
Moscow had a real passion for music and the ballet, accord- 
ing to the instincts of their race. 

Anton told me that his life was not altogether unhappy in 
those days when he played first violin in the orchestra at 
the great opera house. 

“We played a game of make-believe,” he said. “Once 
inside the theatre, we tried to forget the agony of Russia 


A Bargain in the Kremlin 101 


outside. We worked hard, discussed the principles of art, 
rhythm, melody, with passionate argument. We forgot there 
was famine on the Volga; herds of refugees in Moscow 
dying like flies; homes for abandoned children, naked, 
typhus-stricken, like little skeletons. The ladies prattled 
about their costumes, quarrelled, laughed, danced, gobbled 
their éclairs, like a pack of giddy schoolgirls. We were 
excited about new lighting effects. We played practical 
jokes on one another. We divided into cliques, and were 
seething with jealousies, intrigues, loyalties and treacheries, 
in this little world of unreality. 

“Sometimes reality broke in, and our souls were touched 
by the tragedy of life outside—my unfortunate soul, any- 
how. As first violin, I could see the audience night after 
night. Needless to say, they didn’t pay for their tickets 
in those days. They received them with their food tickets. 
They were mechanics, factory workers, men and women 
clerks in Soviet offices, railway workers, red soldiers, com- 
missars, a few peasants here and there. It was strange to 
me at first to see a crowd of rough fellows in red shirts or 
overalls sitting in the imperial box, where, as a boy, I had 
often seen the emperor and empress, with their ladies and 
gentlemen, all glittering with stars and orders. The imperial 
eagles were covered under the red flag. Sometimes I used 
to stare at the faces in the stalls and boxes. Some of them 
were cheerful enough, but others made me shiver. As they 
listened to the orchestra they seemed to be drowned in mel- 
ancholy. They stared out of eyes in which the soul was 
dead or damned. 

“Now and then I saw people I had known in the old days 
—old schoolfellows. They were in working clothes like the 
others, with unshaven faces and dirty hands. I signalled to 
them from the orchestra, raised my hand and smiled. Some- 
times they gave a start of recognition and raised a hand in 
reply, but more often they stared as though they saw only 
the tragedy of that life outside. They were hungry, so many 
of them, poor devils! I am talking of 1920, when the famine 
crept up even to Moscow. | 

“There were women of the old class there sometimes, 


102 Little Novels of Nowadays 


whose sharp cheek bones and sunken eyes were frightening. 
It was the sight of faces like those, night after night, which 
reminded one, sometimes unbearably, of a Russia outside 
this sham world of ours where we fed pretty well, and 
sucked chocolates, and played a game of beautiful make- 
believe. It was that reminder, those eyes in the audience, 
and the suffering of old friends—not so lucky as I1—which 
made me listen to that fool Barkoff.” 7 

It appears from Anton’s narrative that this Barkoff was 
a young painter inflamed against the Soviet Government, 
not only because of its severities in the time of terror, but 
because of its continued oppression of free thought and 
individual liberty. His smouldering fire of discontent burst 
into a flame when his mother, whom he adored, was put 
into prison—like thousands of others in Moscow and Petro- 
grad—for the crime of speculation. That was a name given 
to private trading when people bartered their boots or furs 
or underclothing with the peasants for sacks of potatoes, 
packets of butter and cheese, and other foodstuffs, which 
supplemented their miserable rations. Everybody in the 
cities was doing it secretly, but every now and then they 
were rounded up by the police and sentenced to terms of 
imprisonment. Barkoff’s mother caught typhus in prison 
and died. It maddened the poor boy, and he started some 
kind of plot among his comrades, the main idea of which 
was to organise a secret propaganda among the officers of 
the red army for the overthrow of Lenin and Trotzky, and 
the establishment of a moderate government of free intel- 
lectuals. It was all very visionary and fantastic, and did not 
go beyond some secret meetings in Barkoff’s studio behind 
the opera, and once in Anton’s rooms in the Sophieskaya. 
A list of names of the alternative government was drawn up 
and typewritten. That was the most idiotic thing, endanger- 
ing the life of every man on the list. Two or three women 
were admitted to the plot. They were dancers in the ballet, 
and one of them was Lubimovka, most wild in her way of 
talk, most passionate. She declared herself ready to assassi- 
nate Lenin with a little dagger which she wore in her corset. 

Anton disliked this lady. From what I gathered from 


A Bargain in the Kremlin 103 


him, she was for a time very warmly in love with him, and 
plagued him by her wiles and seductive ways. But at that 
time he was absorbed in his music and as cold as ice towards 
all women. Very rough in his way to them, I imagine, 
having seen his sulkiness and almost extravagant rudeness 
to ladies in England who made an idol of him. 

With this lady, Lubimovka, he had a distressing episode 
one day behind the scenes of the ballet before the curtain 
was raised for that night’s performance. She was in her 
ballet dress and looked charming, Anton said, in a flaxen 
wig. Yet not charming to him in that morose mood of his 
when, finding herself alone with him for a moment in the 
rather dark, dirty labyrinth of stage scenery, she suddenly 
put her arms about him and said, “I love you! Why are 
you so cruel to me?” 

“I’m not cruel,” he said, calmly and coldly. “But I’m too 
busy for sham romance. That kind of thing bores me. I’m 
more interested in my work, and I shall be glad if you will 
take your hands off my shoulders. The scene shifters are 
bashful men.” 

His irony—one must admit its abominable courtesy to a 
pretty woman—seemed to enrage her as though he had 
struck her with a whip. She sprang back from him, panting, 
with her eyes blazing like a‘cat’s eyes in the darkness. 

“T’ll make you pay for those words,” she said, in a hoarse 
whisper. “I offered you my love. It’s now hate between 
us—and I’m dangerous when I hate, Anton Balakireff.” 

On the following night word was passed down the or- 
chestra that Ivan Barkoff and Serge Tchichighanioff, two of 
the free intellectuals, had been arrested and taken before the 
cheka on a charge of counter-revolution. 

Anton heard the news with cold terror, and could hardly 
play because his bow trembled so badly. A thousand times 
he cursed himself for a fool, and believed that he was 
doomed. Some one had betrayed his comrades. His own 
name would be revealed—perhaps was already known to the 
police. Who was the traitor? He racked his mind for an 
answer to that, until suddenly it came upon him with a 
blinding flash—Lubimovka! That cat-woman! She was 


104 Little Novels of Nowadays 


dancing in the ballet, and he raised himself in his seat to 
watch her as she pirouetted towards the spotlights. She was 
a great artist, he admitted that. But there was a devil in 
her soul. She saw him looking at her, and smiled. He knew 
then by something in her eyes that she had betrayed him. 

That belief, that conviction, was shaken when he was still 
free from arrest one week, two weeks, three weeks later. 
Barkoff and Tchichighanioff were still in prison. No news 
could be gleaned about them. They had just disappeared, 
like so many others in Russia. Night after night, Anton 
expected to be arrested when entering or leaving the opera, 
and he was in a constant state of fear until his nerves were 
so shaken that he almost jumped out of his skin if the 
director or any friend touched him on the shoulder. 

One day he spoke to Lubimovka and charged her with 
treachery. She denied the charge, but was clearly lying, 
frightened and perhaps repentant. They had a frightful 
scene together, and he threatened to choke her unless she 
told the truth. But, of course, she lied again, and was a 
spitfire. : 

It was three months later that he was arrested, when, 
after so long a time, he believed that he had maligned the 
lady and was safe. It was when he left the opera house, 
muffled up in his ragged old coat. Two men stepped up to 
him, and one spoke sharply. 

“Anton Balakireff, you are our prisoner. We have orders 
to take you to the Kremlin before Comrade Radeff.” 

Radeff! Old Redbeard! Anton shuddered at the name, 
because it brought back the memory of that night when he 
had played for his life and that man was his judge, his 
critic and his saviour. It could not happen twice. Red- 
beard had said, “No politics!’ He would show no mercy to 
a man whom he had saved once and who was now impli- 
cated in a treasonable plot. He had seen Redbeard many 
times at the opera. He always sat in the box on the right 
side of the proscenium, wagging his head, thrusting his 
plump fingers through the red hair about his flat face, ap- 
plauding generously at the end of each scene. Anton had 
always felt sick at the sight of him, not because he was 


A Bargain in the Kremlin 105 


ungrateful for his having saved his life, but because this 
man brought back the memory of the time of terror, that 
awful prison, his agony and fear. 

“T will go with you,” said Anton coldly to the secret 
police. 

“Yes,” answered one of them; “it’s best not to argue with 
things like this.” 

He drew his hand out of his greatcoat just enough to 
show that he held an ugly-looking weapon. 

“We may as well get a droshky and save boot leather,” 
said the other man. 

So, in a droshky driven by a young boy in a blue cloth 
coat with wide skirts, Anton and his two guards passed 
through the old gate by the shrine of the Iberian Virgin 
and then across the Red Square which is flanked on one side 
by the high walls of the Kremlin. The square was lonely. 
Only a few people from the opera crossed its broad space 
over the rough cobblestones. 

“Which gate?’ asked the young droshky driver. 

“The Cavalry Gate,” shouted the taller of the two police- 
men. 

Anton Balakireff felt his heart turn to water as the lean 
horse of the droshky pulled up with a jerk and stumbled 
almost to its knees outside the gate, where two red soldiers 
paced up and down, their bayonets gleaming as they caught 
the light of a hanging lantern in the archway. The moon 
was high and bright and the dome of the Ivan Veliky and 
a score of other pear-shaped domes of the old towers and 
palaces and chapels within the fortress walks were golden 
and glistening in the white radiance. Black shadows were 
flung from wall to wall and tower to tower, but the palace 
walls gleamed white where the moonlight fell upon them 
between those gulfs of darkness. Not far from the Cavalry 
Gate there was a high flight of steps within the wall, lighted 
by a hanging lantern, and a red sentry stood there motion- 
less, on guard, the silhouette of his figure, with his long 
coat and spiked cap, like an Assyrian soldier. 

Anton was familiar with this aspect of the Kremlin. On 
his way to his cheerless room in the Sophieskaya he passed 


106 Little Novels of Nowadays 


it every day. But at this midnight hour, when he walked 
there as a prisoner, the moonlit walls and towers and those 
high, fantastic domes of shining gilt were invested with a 
kind of terror. In the old days, when the medizval tsars 
had ruled from this fortress palace, the Red Square was the 
place of execution. Their enemies had been hanged in 
batches under these walls, and within them cruelty had sat 
enthroned. Now Lenin was there, and Radeff, and those 
cold brains which had imposed their will upon the Russian 
people. They, too, had no mercy for those who conspired 
against them. Anton Balakireff was being taken to his 
death. So he believed, being conscious of the folly which 
was now betrayed. He felt already dead, though his limbs 
still moved. 

The guard inside the gate challenged them and then stood 
on one side when the two police agents showed their passes 
and spoke the word “Radeff.” They had to pass three guard 
posts in this way before coming into the great quadrangle 
flanked by immense blocks of whitewashed buildings with 
many windows in which lights were gleaming. They were 
the old offices of the imperial court. 

Anton’s two guards led him through an archway, and then 
into the lower corridor of the main building and up three 
flights of stone steps to a higher floor and another long cor- 
ridor, down which were many doors. At each end sat a 
young soldier huddled up in his long overcoat, with a rifle 
between his knees and a long bayonet above his spiked 
helmet of grey cloth. 

Doors opened and women clerks came out carrying sheets 
of typewritten paper. Through an open door Anton saw a 
family scene. A slatternly woman nursing a baby, a man 
with a shock of black hair sipping tea out of a glass, two 
small boys sprawling on the floor listening to a gramophone 
playing some American ragtime tune. Other families were 
in other rooms down the corridor. Anton heard babies 
wailing, the shrill voice of an angry woman, and farther 
along the corridor the sound of a piano. A young girl with 
short black hair curled like rats’ tails darted into the pas- 
sage and emptied out some tea leaves from a big kettle into 


A Bargain in the Kremlin 107 


a tin bucket. An elderly man with a grey flannel shirt 
tucked into his trousers, and carpet slippers, stood in an 
open doorway smoking a cigarette, while behind him, in the 
room, two young officers of the red army were playing chess 
by the light of candles stuck into empty wine bottles. Anton 
was behind the scenes of the Soviet Government. The 
Kremlin was like a swarming rabbit warren of Soviet offi- 
cials with their wives and children. 

One of Anton’s guards tapped at the last door of the cor- 
ridor. A voice shouted “Enter!” and in another moment 
Anton was face to face with old Redbeard, as on that night 
when he had been taken from his cell into this man’s 
presence. 

He was lolling back in a cane rocking-chair, wearing a 
tattered old dressing gown of blue silk. On the table by his 
side were a glass of hot tea and sheaves of papers in a wild 
litter. Around the room were bookshelves, from floor to 
ceiling, crammed with paper-bound volumes and stuffed with 
newspapers and bundles of letters tied up with tape. 

“Ah!” he said without rising. “Good evening, my young 
fiddler! Push those papers off that chair and sit in front 
Oremes: 

Anton was astounded by that friendly greeting, and a little 
cold sweat broke out on his forehead. 

The two police agents stood in the doorway, and Red- 
beard waved to them and said, ““Wait outside.” 

Anton sat stiffly on the wooden chair, alone with this chief 
of propaganda of the Soviet Republic. 

Redbeard smiled at him through his gold-rimmed spec- 
tacles. 

“You have been a naughty boy,’ he said. “A very 
naughty boy—and after I saved your life at a difficult time! 
What have you got to say about it?” 

Anton had nothing to say. He could not speak a single 
word, not knowing how much this man knew, nor what lay 
behind those smiling, watchful eyes. 

Redbeard stretched out his hand and laid it on a card- 
board covered dossier filled with papers. 

“There is evidence here which would cause you to be 


108 Little Novels of Nowadays 


shot, young man, if I sent it to the cheka. I am loath to do 
it. I don’t like the thought that you must stand up against 
a wall and fall with a bullet in your heart. Those hands of 
yours, those quick fingers, those sensitive young ears of 
yours—they make better music than a volley of rifles. It 
would be sad to see you lying crumpled up like an empty 
sack of potatoes. Such a waste! Such a loss to music in 
Moscow!” 

Anton did not know whether he was gibing at him, play- 
ing with him as a cat teases a mouse before it pounces. It 
was like a pounce, a show of claws, when the smile left his 
face for a moment and he struck the papers a heavy blow 
and spoke with an angry snarl. 

“This sort of thing is very vexing. So stupid! Can’t 
you boys and girls cease such foolish nonsense? Seditious 
talk! Silly little plots to overthrow the Soviet Government! 
A Government so strongly established now that not all the 
world can overturn it! Don’t you see how silly it is?” 

Anton spoke for the first time, moistening his lips with 
a cold tongue. 

“Tt was mere talk. Nothing more than that!” 

Redbeard laughed harshly. 

“Dangerous talk! Wicked talk! It gives an excuse to 
the cheka to revive old activities which we want to forget 
and have done with.” 

He suddenly swung forward in the rocking-chair, and 
stood up and paced about the room, pulling at his red beard. 

“We have got beyond the time of terror. I never liked 
it. I’m a man of tender heart. Blood is not a pleasant 
smell to me. But it was necessary to destroy those who 
tried to undo the work of revolution. All governments are 
cruel in self-defence. A revolutionary government has 
enemies from within as well as without. It can only live 
by terror.... Bah! It’s an ugly business, and I have 
been rejoiced that with the ending of counter-revolutions 
executions have been rare of late. Now you and a pack 
of young idiots try to revive the monster!” 

“Tt was the folly of youth!” said Anton miserably. 

Radeff snorted with scorn. 


A Bargain in the Kremlin 109 


“It is youth that ought to be wise! We older men are 
tainted by the folly of the past. We can hardly wash our 
hands clean. The future of the world belongs to youth; 
but if youth plays the fool, what hope is there?” 

“We are agonised by the misery of Russia,” said Anton. 
“We are deadened: by the suppression of free thought and 
free speech. The famine on the Volga makes us weep with 
its tale of death and pestilence. There seems no hope for 
Russia.” 

Radeff cried out, “My God! What folly these children 
talk!” 

He put a heavy hand on Anton’s shoulder and shook him 
a little. 

“The agony of Russia? Yes. Don’t you see that it’s be- 
cause of that agony that Russia must have peace and the 
co-operation of all its citizens? Free speech? Will that 
bring food to the mouths of starving peasants in the Volga 
Valley, whose harvests were burned and blackened by the 
destroying drought? There has been too much speech. 
Too much theoretical talk. Abstract theories! Russia dies 
of them. We must get trains to move. We must get our 
factories to work to make ploughs for the fields. We must 
buy seed grain from foreign countries and get it to the 
starving peasants so that next year’s harvest may be sowed 
and reaped. Otherwise death and disease will creep close 
to Moscow and destroy us all... . You talking boys and 
girls! You intellectual rebels! Supposing you were to over- 
throw the Soviet Government, hang the heads of Lenin and 
all of us on the Kremlin gates—do you think that would 
help Russia, feed her hungry folk, restart her factories, 
bring fuel to her engines? It would be the death blow of 
the Russian people.” 

He stopped speaking, and expected Anton to answer him; 
but that young man sat silent, staring at the tattered carpet 
and wondering what all this talk meant to him, why he had 
been brought here under arrest to listen to it, whether it 
was a prelude to his death or imprisonment. 

“My people,” said Radeff, speaking again, “were peasants 
of the Volga Valley. Do you think that I have no heart 


110 Little Novels of Nowadays 


for the folk down there? That drought was not the fault 
of the Soviet Republic. It was Nature’s merciless cruelty, 
which is worse than that of men. I want to save them. I 
am working to save them. You can help me, Anton 
Balakireff !”’ 

“TP” said Anton, stupefied. 

“Tf you have any loyalty,’ answered Radeff, staring at 
him through his spectacles. 

He opened the dossier of papers on his table and took out. 
a typewritten sheet. 

“This is a letter to you,” he said. “You have not read 
it, because our police censor brought it to me first. It con- 
tains an offer to you—from England. A good offer. A 
great sum of money for a few months’ work.” 

“An offer? A great sum of money?” 

Anton stammered his questions. He could not understand. 

“It’s a musical agency in London,” said Radeff. “They 
have heard of your great talent from some of the refugees 
—those foolish traitors who escape from Russia to tell lies 
about the Soviet, to conspire against the life of Russia. 
Never mind! It is the offer that interests me. Ten thou- 
sand English pounds for a season in London. ‘That is nearly 
ten thousand million roubles at the rate of exchange. That 
money would save many peasants’ lives in Russia. You shall 
go and bring it back, and save your own life at that price. 
Is it a bargain?” 

So that was the secret of his visit to the Kremlin! That 
was why Anton Balakireff was not in prison like his two 
comrades, or dead from a volley of bullets, as they might 
be. 

Anton’s heart leaped within him. He could feel the 
thump of it. England! A journey to England! Escape 
for ever from this life in Russia, with its hunger, its misery, 
its secret police, its political executions! Never again would 
he come back, if once free of its frightfulness. 

“T will go!” he said breathlessly. “It’s a miracle!” 

“Yes, you shall go,” said Radeff. “But only to earn the 
money and come back. Every rouble of it for the starving 
peasants. You understand?” 


A Bargain in the Kremlin I11 


“They shall have the money,” said Anton. “That is un- 
derstood.” 

“It is well understood. I believe you to be an honest 
young man, though very foolish. In case you are not honest 
—and life is full of temptation—I shall keep hostages for 
your homecoming. If you are not back in Moscow by 
October tenth of this year—that is, three and a half months 
from now—two poor young men will be shot on that day. 
I mean your comrades, Barkoff and Tchichighanioff.” 

Anton drew a deep breath and put a trembling hand up 
to his pale forehead. 

“T will come back,” he said; “I will bring. the money.” 

Radeff was pleased with him. He accepted his word. He 
enlarged at some length on the great opportunity that had 
come to this young man for the service of his people. He 
would also be able to do a little propaganda in England on 
behalf of Russia. People would listen to him. They would 
believe what he told them. He might earn more than ten 
thousand pounds by appealing to rich English people on 
behalf of his famine-stricken people. 

“England is corrupt and hypocritical,” said Radeff; “but 
she would be glad to ease her guilty conscience by so-called 
charity.” 

The conversation ended by Radeff ringing a bell which 
brought back the two police agents. 

“T have no further need of you, comrades,” he said pleas- 
antly. “This young man is a loyal citizen. Our suspicions 
were not justified.” 

“As you will, comrade,” said the taller man obediently. 
He saluted and left the room with his companion. 

“You will need a paper to get out of the Kremlin,” said 
Radeff. 

He scrawled his name on a printed slip and gave it to 
Anton. 

“T am your guardian angel,” he said, with his chuckling 
laugh. “This is the second time I save your young life.” 

Then he struck Anton a light blow on the shoulder. 

“Do not risk a third time, young man. I have not un- 
limited patience.” 


112 Little Novels of Nowadays 


That was a threat. It was spoken as such, with, sinister 
and deadly meaning. Then he held out his plump hand. 

“You will start for England next Friday. I will arrange 
your passport—and in three months and a half we meet 
again! Good luck, and a safe return!” 

Anton took his hand and stammered a few words of 
thanks. Then, he told me, he burst into tears. This relief 
from the fear of death, this great adventure before him, and 
this escape, were too much for his frayed nerves. 

“Foolish child! Foolish child!” said Redbeard. 

He patted him on the arm, and then drew him close and 
kissed him, so that Anton’s tears wetted his hairy face. 
There was something human and kindly in this extraor- 
dinary man who had become one of the chiefs of terror. 
So—to write a platitude—is human nature compounded 
strangely of mixed qualities, evil with good, cruelty with 
kindness, and no mortal man may unravel its mysterious 
threads of instinct and impulse. 

That, briefly—for I have omitted all but the salient things 
—is why Anton Balakireff came to England, after that bar- 
gain in the Kremlin by which he bought his life for ten 
thousand pounds in English money, to be paid at the end 
of a concert season, with two other young lives as hostages 
for his return. 

Rather a tragic bargain when one knows what followed, 
as I do, intimately, from Anton’s own confession, told to 
me in an English country house, late at night, before a log 
fire in an old chimney place, when the flickering light of 
the burning wood played ruddily upon the white face of 
this young Russian and cast dark shadows about his deep- 
sunken eyes. 

Life seemed so secure in that English house, where all 
the household were in bed at that hour, long past midnight. 
We were so far from the agony of the Russian people, from 
the power of the cheka, from the prisons in Moscow, from 
the great famine on the Volga, where in hundreds of vil- 
lages Russian peasant folk saw their children wither and 
weaken and laid themselves down to wait for death, more 
kind than life, as afterwards I saw with my own eyes. It 


A Bargain in the Kremlin vio 


was before the great work of British and American Relief 
which saved so many of those folk. 

I have said in the beginning of this narrative that Anton 
was tempted by cowardice. Imagine the force of his temp- 
tation, if you can. That promise he had made to go back 
seemed hard enough when he had crossed the Russian fron- 
tier at Sebezh, and knew, with a sense of ecstasy, that he 
could speak freely again, without fear of police spies; that 
he was beyond the reach and authority of the cheka itself; 
that he had the liberty of the world before him and in his 
soul. : 

It was as though he had been uncaged. He found himself 
singing, laughing, shouting, because of this sense of libera- 
tion. It was the lifting of fear from his spirit, and relief 
from that oppression which weighed heavily on him in Rus- 
sia, as upon many minds which intellectually or emotionally 
rebelled against the communistic system and its establish- 
ment of equality by universal wretchedness. 

In England, after a quick journey by way of Riga and 
Berlin, he tasted for the first time since boyhood the luxury 
of life, the refined comforts of an old civilisation, un- 
changed—so far as he was aware—by the cost of war. Since 
1916, at the latest, he had fed on rough fare, not always 
enough for physical well-being, and often not better than 
semi-starvation. He had shivered in unheated rooms, gone 
dirty for lack of soap and water, dressed in old, threadbare, 
grease-stained clothes, kept company with men and women 
as shabby as he, as hungry as he, as dirty as he, as miser- 
able, though they made jests about life and death. The 
melancholy of people reduced to ruin by war and revolution, 
followed by famine and pestilence, was the dark background 
which overshadowed the spirit of Russian youth. 

Now, in England, as the guest of rich folk, who admired 
his genius, he wallowed, as it were, in the luxury and grace 
and beauty of life. Out of the money advanced to him on 
account of expenses—over and above his fees—he was able 
to dress with elegance, and found a positive joy, an almost 
spiritual thrill of exquisite emotion, in his clean white snirts 
and collars, in his wonderful trousers and polished boots 


114 Little Novels of Nowadays 


and white spats, in his silk handkerchiefs and coloured ~ 
socks. Those things represented to him not only the fop- 
pishness which is a natural instinct of youth, but the con- 
trast between the grace of life and, for example, that prison 
cell in Moscow where he had lain on filthy boards among 
typhus-stricken, lousy, unwashed comrades. 

Is it any wonder that his mind searched for a thousand 
reasons why he should be absolved from that pledge to go 
back—into the cage again, into the squalor? 

When he sat at a table covered with snow-white linen in 
any private house or public restaurant, and touched the 
gleaming silver, and saw the light of candles twinkling on 
wine glasses and flower-patterned plates, the memory of his 
little old room in Moscow with its iron bedstead, its dirty 
walls with cracked plaster, its unwashed dishes from which 
he ate his meagre rations like an animal, with beastly hunger, 
overwhelmed him with shuddering disgust. Never could he 
go back to that! He would not go back! He had escaped 
by the grace of God! 

Russian exiles in England crowded round him after his 
concerts, embraced him, kissed his hands, sent him flowers, 
which were heaped in his dressing room. 

Some of these people were friends of his father and 
mother, who had greeted him as one risen from the dead. 
His father, General Balakireff, was now living in an old 
English country house, complaining bitterly of poverty, curs- 
ing the Soviet Republic which had ruined him; yet, as 
Anton saw, still rich enough to live in good style, to enter- 
tain a crowd of friends like an English gentleman. 

All these Russian refugees complained in a tragic way of 
poverty ; and there was, indeed, a horde of poverty-stricken 
Russians in Europe, paupers on foreign charity. Yet Anton 
met many who were driving in motor cars, dining at expen- 
sive restaurants and behaving as though they were on a 
holiday in England, as in the old days before war and revo- 
lution. The wisest of them had invested their money in 
foreign securities before the crash came. 

It was in his father’s English home at Godalming, in 
Surrey, that Anton met the lady who added the last and 


A Bargain in the Kremlin i 


most tremendous temptation to his desperate desire to break 
the pledge he had made with Redbeard in the Kremlin— 
that promise to go back. She was Lady Mary Wickham, 
and he came to desire her with the whole ardour of his 
Russian temperament. That was inevitable, seeing her 
beauty—utterly English in type—and this young man’s sud* 
den awakening to the beauty of life. 

I have told that he was cold to his women friends in 
Russia, and especially to that lady, Lubimovka, who betrayed 
him. That I think was because of his melancholy sur- 
roundings and the dark shadow cast on his spirit by the 
misery of his country. Anyhow, he was set on fire by 
Lady Mary Wickham. 

She lived near Godalming, and rode over to see his 
mother, and, as I can vouch, was a pretty picture on that 
black horse of hers, in her riding coat and breeches. A 
gallant-looking girl, with merry brown eyes and a com- 
plexion not found among Russian women. She had a brain, 
too, which is not so usual with English girls of that class. 

She was not like the other women who sent him flowers 
and kissed his hands on the concert platform. She laughed 
at all that, and treated him rather as a sulky boy who was 
getting spoiled by admiration; sometimes as a rather wild 
animal whom she was inclined to tame by kindness, or, if 
need be, by cruelty. 

He had been deliberately rude to her at first when his 
mother had introduced them; and then, afterwards, when 
she came to a garden party and said, “Tell me about Rus- 
sia,” as they walked together in the rose garden, he talked 
to her with a stark brutality of the things he had seen and 
suffered in the time of the terror, not sparing her any detail 
. of horror and loathsomeness. She was not shocked. 

She listened gravely, and nodded her head and _ said, 
“That’s life at its ugliest. We’ve been saved from that in 
England—so far.” 

He tried to shock her again by saying, “It might do you 
some good—you comfortable English people, in your shel- 
tered gardens and your pretty clothes. The cruelty of life 
hasn’t touched you. You'd be all the better for a little 


116 Little Novels of Nowadays 


misery and dirt and lice and hunger. It would be a,spiritual 
lesson.” 

She was not at all put out by that speech, but she denied 
the necessity for such things in England. 

“Our men—and the best of them—went through the dirt 
of war all right. They weren’t soft. They did not escape 
from the lice which you seem to think so good for their 
spiritual education. The trenches were crawling with them.” 

That was their first argument. They had many others, 
in evenings when this lady came to dinner with some of 
his father’s friends, and afterwards, when he went riding 
with her on one of her horses. 

He found himself defending the Soviet leaders and their 
philosophy—even their tyranny—which in Moscow he had 
hated. He raged against the Russian refugees who had fled 
from their country and spent their time abusing the Russian 
people and trying to persuade European governments to 
invade Russia again, and so create more anarchy and revive 
more terror and spill more blood. . 

“Then you’re a Bolshevik?” she asked coolly. 

“No,” he answered sullenly. “But I’m a Russian, first 
and last. I prefer a communist who tries to serve his coun- 
try rather than a tsarist renegade who tries to ruin it.” 

One can imagine these conversations. Anton told me the 
gist of some of them, and laughed in a melancholy way at 
that devilish trick of his brain which prompted him to quarrel 
with this girl, to say brutal things to her, to break down her 
English simplicity and to startle her sweet, frank mind by 
revolutionary ideals against which, in Moscow, he had argued 
interminably with his Russian friends. 

“A guilty conscience,” he told me. “Every time I sat 
down to a good dinner I thought of the starving peasants 
on the Volga, and sickened over my food. The more I 
gloried in the elegance and beauty of English life, the more 
I was disgusted with myself for yielding to its charms, while 
friends of mine were pining in the prisons of Moscow, and 
others living in squalor on short rations. Besides, the self- 
satisfied complacency of you English people, your hypocrisy, 
the brutal contrast of wealth in London, made me swing, 


A Bargain in the Kremlin 117 


against my will, against my own intelligence, in favour of 
the communistic ideal which has dragged Russia down to 
hell, or at least to an equality of misery in which one faces 
the stark truth of human tragedy.” 

Some of those arguments with Lady Mary Wickham took 
place before General Balakireff, and distressed that old gen- 
tleman acutely. There was a violent scene one night when 
the old man denounced his son as an agent of Bolshevism 
and threatened to turn him out of doors. 

Anton’s mother was hardly less distressed, and wept bitter 
tears when Anton vowed—sincerely, he told me—that the 
famine on the Volga was not to be put down against the 
Soviet Government, but was an act of Nature which they 
had done their best to overcome by heroic effort. 

All this time, you must understand, Anton was giving his 
concerts at the Queen’s Hall and entrancing great audiences 
by his mastery as a violinist, so that his reputation reached 
Paris, Berlin and New York. Of that side of his visit I 
know very little, being ignorant of music and the musical 
world. 

The crisis of his agony—for his mental conflict reached 
that point—came toward the end of September, when he 
received one word from Moscow, by way of Riga. It was 
a telegram from Radeff, and the word was ‘“‘Remember.” 
It was handed to him as he left the concert hall before 
motoring down to Godalming. 

That evening Mary Wickham was coming to dinner with 
his people, and he had decided to declare his passion to her. 
She knew already that she had tamed him, and that her wild 
beast, as he called himself, was ready to lick the dust off 
her riding boots or to lie down at her feet in adoration. 

They had had a little scene together the very day before, 
when he had suddenly seized her hand—they were in the 
garden, so I gather—and kissed it. She had pretended to be 
angry, and walked away; but he had seen something in her 
eyes which told him that she was not really angry, and that 
by some miracle he had gained this girl’s good will and 
grace. 

He had quarrelled his way into her heart! Because she 


118 Little Novels of Nowadays 


had tamed him, she loved him, in her quiet, mirthful, Eng- 
lish way. He was sure of it, and by that revelation life had 
become a glory, and joy pervaded him. 

Now this word came from Moscow, and that “Remem- 
ber!” chilled him like an icy whisper from the voice of fate. 
Only two weeks remained before the fulfilment of his 
pledge. He would have to leave London in five days’ time 
to get back to Moscow by the date fixed. Well, he would 
not leave London! He would be damned rather than go 
back. They could have the money. But they would not 
get his body and soul. He would stay in England with Mary 
Wickham, and the devil take Moscow. 

As he stepped into his motor car he tore the telegram 
into small pieces and let them flutter to the pavement. That 
was the last of Redbeard so far as he was concerned. 

That evening there was quite a large party at General 
Balakireff’s house in Godalming, including two Russian prin- 
cesses, the painter Laleham, Vardon of The Times, Wood- 
gate the novelist, and myself. Lady Mary Wickham came 
with her sister Evelyn. 

Anton sat next to Mary Wickham, and looked to me as 
though he had been drinking. His face, very pale as a 
rule, was flushed, and there was a wonderful shining bright- 
ness in his eyes. He was a little drunk, not with wine, but 
with passion and exaltation. 

I noticed how tender his voice was when he spoke to the 
girl at his side, how he gazed at her now and then with the 
devotion of a dog’s eyes. But they spoke very little. Mary 
Wickham was aware of his mood, and guessed the cause of 
it, | think. She had a queer little smile about her lips and 
a shy look in her brown eyes. 

After dinner there was tea on the covered terrace outside 
the house—it was a warm night and very beautiful in the 
purple dusk. Anton Balakireff and Mary Wickham moved 
away down the garden, and I saw their figures at the bottom 
of the pergola, where they stood a while above the tennis 
lawn. Once it seemed to me—though I am not absolutely 
certain—that Anton tried to take her hand. Presently they 
came back to the terrace, not speaking at all. Anton was 


¢ 


A Bargain in the Kremlin 119 


very pale, but there was still that shining light in his eyes. 

“Play something, Anton,” said one of the Russian ladies. 
“Out here in the garden, on this charming night, your music 
will sound divine.” 

He refused for a time, sulkily, until Mary Wickham 
touched him on the sleeve and said “Play!” Then obedi- 
ently he went into the house and fetched his violin. 

Standing there below the porch of that old house, looking 
towards the garden with its purple twilight under a blue sky 
in which the afterglow of the sun still lingered, Anton played 
some little Russian melodies, very simple and sweet, such as 
peasant women might sing to their babes. Then suddenly, 
after a pause in which the company murmured their pleasure, 
he raised his head, thrusting back the long black lock from 
his forehead, and struck a strident, savage note, and then 
played the queerest, maddest stuff I have ever heard. 

Frightfully Russian! I could tell that, though I do not 
understand music. J am bound to say I neither understood 
it nor liked it, except here and there when the rhythm of it 
was rather stirring and when I could follow some kind of 
melody of the old folk-song kind. But my likes and dislikes 
do not matter. What was more interesting was its emo- 
tional effect upon the musician himself, and upon the Rus- 
sians in his audience. 

They seemed to understand its meaning, which, plainly, 
was tragic and pitiful. I now know from Anton that it was 
the thing he had played that night before the cheka when 
he was brought from prison and saved his life by his fiddling. 
The two Russian princesses became very pale, sighed, and 
wept a little, as I could see by their glistening eyes in the 
half darkness. 

As for Anton himself, it is certain that he saw nothing of 
this English garden before him. He was staring far away 
—to Russia, where his own people were dying of hunger 
and living in misery, so many of them. His black eyes 
were large and luminous. His lips were firmly pressed into 
a line of pain. Sweat broke upon his forehead. 

I looked at Mary Wickham. She was sitting up rather 
straight in a white wicker chair, staring at Anton. She had 


120 Little Novels of Nowadays 


a queer smile about her lips, as though this strange foreign 
music startled her and perhaps amused her. I think now 
she guessed the meaning of it to herself. It meant the call 
back to Russia of this man who was her lover. 

In those wild notes of his was the spirit of his race, and 
its voice claimed that man’s soul and gave him courage to 
resist the iure of England and this English girl and the 
beauty of life, because he could not desert his people in 
their tragedy nor forget his pledge of honour on their behalf. 

The last strident notes shrieked into the English garden, 
and then Anton, with trembling hands, put his violin and 
bow on a little wooden tea table, and after a few words of 
Russian, ending in a harsh laugh, went abruptly indoors. 

“Very fine! Wonderful stuff!” said Woodgate, the 
novelist. 

One of the Russian ladies murmured the word, “Sad!” 
and then whispered to the other princess. 

General Balakireff, the father of Anton, sighed with some- 
thing like a groan and said, “Our poor Russia!’ Then he 
invited the company to go indoors because of the falling 
dew. 

Mary Wickham took Madame Balakireff’s hands and 
said, “It’s time for me to go. Tell your son I think I 
understand the meaning of what he played. Give him my 
love.” 

She bowed to the other ladies and moved away with the 
general towards the garden gate. It was her last visit to 
this house before Anton left. 

It was that night when Anton and I sat together and he 
told me his story, for an hour or more. It was what I have 
written, but it was told in broken English—though very 
fluent—which I have not tried to imitate. It was also a 
more intimate confession than I have given of the conflict 
in his mind between honour and dishonour, cowardice and 
self-sacrifice. 

One thing he told me was rather startling. 

“As I was playing,” he said, “I saw two figures in my 
father’s garden, quite plainly, as I see you now in this fire- 
light. They were Barkoff and Tchichighanioff, my two poor 


A Bargain in the Kremlin 121 


comrades, who are hostages in prison for my return. They 
were pale and weak, and stretched out their hands to me. 
If I stayed here with my lady I should be damned forever, 
because their lives would pay the forfeit for my dishonour.” 
He left England two days later, and, as I know from a 
letter I have had, reached Moscow three days before the 
date to which he had been pledged. 

“Old Redbeard kissed me on both cheeks and grabbed 
the money,” he wrote. “It will feed many poor, starving 
folk.” Then he told me that the famine was still raging; 
that Lenin had abandoned the strict laws of communism; 
that private trading had been established; and that, in spite 
of famine, there was more hope among his friends. He 
added a postscript: 

“When you see Lady Mary Wickham, tell her that her 
wild beast is in his cage once more, with a broken heart. 
But he hopes to escape again and get it mended.” 


V: THE VISIONS OF YVONNE 


HAT affair of Yvonne Monnier, which was a nine 

days’ wonder in France, only reached English-speak- 
ing countries in a few insignificant paragraphs in the daily 
papers. 

Yet there must be thousands of English officers, and not 
a few Americans, who remember, vaguely perhaps, but as 
one of the lurking memories of war, a bedridden girl who 
used to set a gramophone playing in a courtyard of Bailleul. 

All through the war, until a day towards the end of it, 
she used to be brought out on fine days into that yard of 
the Hotel de France—a very filthy place, but as good as a 
public paradise to young officers straight from the hell of 
Ypres, not far away as gun-fire goes—and while they were 
drinking wine she used to lie back on an old horsehair couch 
and play them merry little tunes of France on that cheap 
instrument with a tin funnel, which stood on a table by 
her side. Most of the officers used to have a word or two 
with her, touched by that girl’s delicate, flower-like beauty, 
which gives a fair mask sometimes to disease. 

Quite a number of them, indeed, used, in their good- 
natured way, to draw their chairs close and beg her to give 
them another tune, and make her smile by their mistakes 
in French. 

She came to know many of them by name, or by sight, 
and used to ask about them from other officers when she 
missed them for more than a few weeks. So often the 
answer was the tale of death. 

“The Lieutenant Jenkins? _ Oh, he was killed, le pauvre 
garcon, in the last big battle. You heard the guns a week 
ago?” 

Yes, she had heard the guns then, as every day for four 
years, sometimes with the low growling thunder of the daily 
routine, up by Kemmel and the Messines Ridge, or away 

122 


The Visions of Yvonne | 


by Hooge and the Ypres Canal, sometimes rising to fury, 
so that she knew death was busier than usual with those 
English and Scottish soldiers who liked to listen to the 
music of her tawdry gramophone. 

When there was no one in the courtyard of the Hotel de 
France, or when officers were drinking their wine and not 
talking to her, she used to listen intently to that distant 
gun-fire, and there was a look of anguish in her dark eyes 
which she hid at once if any one came near or spoke to her. 
She set the gramophone going to the little old tunes as her 
one act of service to boys who were mostly sentenced to 
death—she knew that—in those places where the great noise 
was. It pleased her to think they liked the music, and that 
it helped them to be gay with their wine. 

A child she seemed to them. Yet she must have been 
fifteen when the war began and nineteen on the day when 
the Germans made their northern attack and came close 
enough to Bailleul to get their guns registered on the town 
hall and the chimneys of the Hotel de France, and then to 
sweep its streets with high explosive shells until the town 
was a bonfire and the flame of it rose as one torch to the 
sky, and there was nothing left but ashes and charred bricks. 

The people took to flight when the bombardment began, 
and with them Yvonne was carried on a farm cart. The 
gramophone which had played so many tunes to so many 
friends was burnt with the Hotel de France, and all that 
was in it. But by some queer freak of neurosis the girl’s 
malady—some spinal weakness—was cured by the shock of 
terror, or by some ecstasy of emotion, and there was no 
further need of the old horsehair couch on which she had 
lain for years until carried from it in the strong arms of 
her father. | 

A miracle the people called it, those who had known her 
in Bailleul, and now were fugitives in St. Pol, where her 
family found shelter, but French doctors know of other 
cases of the kind. Yvonne herself gave all her thanks to 
God, and doubtless it was her long suffering and this sudden 
cure, and the thoughts that had come to her when listening 
for four years to the labouring of guns, which caused in 


124 Little Novels of Nowadays 


her a spiritual exaltation extraordinary in its influence upon 
many young men of France. Part of this story is known 
through distorted accounts in the French Press, cynical and 
rather cruel in their flippancy, but there are few outside 
Picardy and Paris who have heard the real facts of this 
new chapter in the history of mysticism and human love. 
It is worth telling as a curious tale. 

After the armistice, and just before the signing of the 
Treaty of Versailles, Bertrand Monnier bought the inn 
called the Coq d’Or from its former owner, his cousin, 
with the little fortune he had made out of British officers 
at Bailleul. It was not so big as the Hotel de France, but 
it had a good custom from the townsfolk of St. Pol, a small 
place not far from Arras, and from the local farmers who 
came in once a week on market days. His wife was a good 
cook, in a plain way, with such things as escalope de veau 
and bueuf a la mode, and like all French women could 
produce a pot au feu of a good full taste. Bertrand Mon- 
nier himself was a sound judge of wine, and after hard 
haggling, bought his cousin’s cellar, stocked with excellent 
Moulin & Vent, Mercurey and Nuits at a cheap price. 

Suzanne, the servant, who had done most of the house- 
work at Bailleul, with a few old hags under her shrewish 
command—she was a level-headed girl, with only occasional 
lapses of amorous passion with ostlers and peasant farmers 
—had escaped in the same cart with Yvonne, and attached 
herself to the new household as a matter of course. Jean 
Berthoult, her brother, who had fought at Verdun and most 
other parts of the French front—with three wound stripes, 
the Croix de Geurre and the Médaille Militaire—was put 
in charge of the yard with its stabling for four horses and 
its garage for touring cars and the town omnibus. 

Altogether the new establishment was not a bad successor 
to the Hotel de France, though Bertrand Monnier and his 
wife never ceased to lament the glories of their former state 
—unless Yvonne were present. A reproach in her eyes 
accused them of ingratitude for grumbling when so many 
of their former neighbours had lost everything. 

Husband and wife, hard and shrewd as most of their class 


The Visions of Yvonne ys 


in Picardy, yet with a touch of superstition, were often 
silent in the presence of Yvonne. They had been used to 
her lying on the old horsehair couch, helpless as a baby, and 
had treated her always as a child, tenderly enough, and 
with simple, matter-of-fact helpfulness and devotion. But 
this cure of hers seemed to make her a stranger to them. 
The cure itselfi—the “miracle,” as it was called by some 
of the old women and the curé of St. Pol—had frightened 
them. “Bons Catholiques,’ as they called themselves, they 
had the usual indifference of the French bourgeoisie to 
religion. They were always ready to give a hearty “Bon 
jour, monsieur le curé!’’ to the parish priest, but they did 
not go to his church more than once or twice a year, except 
on special occasions like weddings, christenings, funerals, 
and the thanksgiving for victory. They were tolerant, but 
religious emotion seemed to them an interference with the 
common-sense duty of adding one franc to another, and they 
resented the idea of any clerical meddling with their private 
business, their way of life, or their political opinions. Even 
for le bon Dieu they had no more than a friendly tolerance. 
God was all right, as long as He did not interfere or tyran- 
nise. Heaven was one thing, no doubt inevitable in course 
of time. The Hotel de France or the Cog d’Or was another 
thing, of more immediate importance. It was therefore a 
shock to them, almost a grievance, certainly a fear, when 
God seemed to interfere too closely with their accustomed 
habits of mind and life by the miraculous cure of Yvonne. 
For they did not deny that it partook of the miraculous. 

When Bertrand Monnier had come to lift her down from 
the farm cart, after that journey from Bailleul, she had 
cried out to him, “Je suis guérie! Grace a Dieu!’—“T am 
cured! Thanks be to God!” While he stood there with a 
cold sweat on his face, because he was afraid, she had 
clambered out of the cart herself and walked unaided, as 
white as chalk, like a ghost girl, into the courtyard of the 
Coq d’Or. 

Suzanne had laughed, with a kind of hysteria, saying it 
was very dréle, but Bertrand’s wife had stood gazing at 
her daughter with a kind of dazed wonderment, and then 


126 Little Novels of Nowadays 


had scolded her, with an anger that was also a little hys- 
terical, for daring to walk when for fifteen years she had 
been lying down. 

After that they watched her furtively, and even at table 
when they dined privately together, with only Jean and 
Suzanne, they were constrained in the presence of this 
daughter who had changed so utterly. She laid the table, 
and they would watch her carrying the plates and dishes 
with a look of incredulity, so undisguised by Bertrand that 
he would sit there with stupefaction in his eyes and his 
mouth a little open like a peasant amazed. Sometimes he 
would growl at her: 

“That’s too heavy for you, little one!” 

She would smile at him with a look of ineffable happiness. 

“I am strong! Every day J get stronger!) See, Iocan 
lift this coffee-pot as though it were a feather!” 

It was true that she became rapidly as strong as most 
young girls, and, but for the extreme pallor of her face, 
which made her eyes look larger and darker, there would 
have been no reminder of those years when she lay para- 
lysed. She walked with grace and held her head high, and 
though her features were not faultless, the line being of the 
Picard type, she was of undeniable beauty, as admitted 
even by the wits and cynics of Paris who attempted to be- 
smirch her. One of them was not wholly wrong when he 
_ said that she had the smile of the Gioconda. 

There was one young man in St. Pol to whom she seemed 
more beautiful than any girl in France. This was Jean, 
the brother of Suzanne. For a time after his coming to the 
Coq d’Or he was sullen in her presence, and tongue-tied 
when she spoke to him. Not for a long time would he tell 
her of any incident in the long agony of the defence of 
Verdun, in which he had gained his Médaille Militaire, but 
would shrug his shoulders, red to the tip of ear, and say, 
“C'est idiot, tout cal’—“All that’s ridiculous !”—and then 
slouch out to the yard perhaps to wash down the motor 
omnibus which he drove twice daily between St. Pol and 
Hesdin. 


The Visions of Yvonne 127 


At meal-times he sat mostly silent, but stared furtively 
at the girl as she moved about just as her father and mother 
did, but with different ideas in his head. He was not 
frightened of her because she had been cured by a 
“miracle.” He was frightened of her because she was so 
beautiful, he thought, and different from all the other girls 
whom he had courted and kissed in the old days before the 
war, when he was something of a rogue with girls. Beau- 
tiful, white and delicate, like a statue of the Madonna in 
the church of Ablain St. Nazaire before it was smashed to 
dust by German shell-fire. 

His sister, Suzanne, used to talk of her to him. 

“Mile. Yvonne is, I think, a saint, Jean. That, or per- 
haps a little touchée. (By which she meant “dotty.”) She 
talks too much of God. Always it is, ‘grace &@ Dieu! That 
is a bad sign. She makes me feel as though I were in 
church.” 

“It ought to be good for you, then,” growled Jean. 

Suzanne had quick eyes and a sharp tongue. With her 
brother she quarrelled always, though she adored him pri- 
vately as a great hero of France, but very stupid. 

One day she said to him: 

“You pretend to dislike Mlle. Yvonne, n’est- co-pas? You 
won't speak a civil word to her. But you would lick the 
dust under her feet. I can see love in your eyes, as hungry 
as a starving dog!” 

Jean caught her roughly by the arm and told her to “Shut. 
her beak,” or he would beat her with his leather strap. 

“Bah! What I say then is true!” said Suzanne, shooting 
out her tongue at him and escaping up the passage to the: 
kitchen. 

It was true. Jean would have lain down in the mud and 
let Yvonne step on him if she had a mind to. 

_ There was a little church at St.\Pol to’ which the girl 
used to go on week days, after dinner, when all household 
work was done. Mostly she was alone in the church at 
that hour of summer evenings, when the sun went down 
redly below the harvest fields along the Arras road, and 


128 Little Novels of Nowadays 


dusk crept up the High Street of St. Pol, and inside the 
church it was dark except for the red lamp before the 
altar. 

Jean followed Yvonne at a distance, sat on a low stone 
wall outside the church while she stayed inside, and met 
her as though by hazard when she came out. 

“Why do you go so much to church?” he asked. “It’s 
not natural. It’s bad for anybody’s health.” 

“T go to talk with God,” she answered simply. 

“Bah!” said Jean. “That’s child’s talk. God never an- 
swers. He doesn’t hear. In the trenches God didn’t care 
a damn for all the cries of the wounded.” 

“He heard them,” answered Yvonne. 

Jean turned his head sideways and looked at her sombrely. 

“How do you know that? I say God didn’t hear. Or 
if He heard, then He doesn’t care. I was there. Why do 
you deny what I know?” 

He spoke sulkily, in his usual way with this girl. 

“He heard,” said Yvonne, with positive assurance. 

“’*Cré Nom! How do you know?” 

Jean spoke almost with violence. 

“He has told me,’ she answered. “He has spoken to 
me—in the church.” 

“C’est idiot ca!” said Jean again. “That’s ridiculous.” 

He thrust his hands into the side pockets of his jacket and 
started whistling some low music-hall song as if to express 
still more his disbelief in that kind of talk. But secretly he 
was perturbed. And angry. He was angry because 
Yvonne, when she talked like that, was still further re- 
moved from him by a spiritual gulf which he could not 
pass. He wanted to take hold of her arms and kiss her on 
the mouth. If she had been an ordinary girl he could 
have done that. But when she talked of God like that it 
was impossible. Just as it would have been impossible to 
kiss the little nun who nursed him at Chalons when he had 
his second wound. 

Something happened to Yvonne one day, when she came 
out of the cemetery along the Arrat-St. Pol road, where so 
many French and English soldiers lay buried. 


The Visions of Yvonne 129 


Jean saw that something had happened to her by the way 
she looked. 

“She looked as though she saw something which others 
could not see,” he said afterwards. “Her eyes were very 
big and afraid.” | 

He had followed her to the cemetery, just as sometimes 
he followed her to the church. It was, he said, excusing 
himself, to protect her from the village louts who wandered 
about looking for adventures with any girl after dusk. He 
saw her standing in the line of English graves, one of those 
long lines of stone crosses, better kept than the French 
graves on the other side. He thought she was looking for 
the names of some of the young English officers whom she 
had known in Bailleul. Presently she knelt down and 
seemed to pray for a long time, until Jean was bored and 
lit a cigarette as he leaned over the gate. It was almost 
dusk—an evening in September when the nights were draw- 
ing in. A little white mist crept up from the graves and the 
grass plots. A star came up and twinkled above the dis- 
tant woods. A golden oriole was singing now and then in 
a tree by the roadway, and a field-mouse was roaming up 
and down a bank a yard away from Jean, where he stood 
quite still. ... Suddenly Yvonne sprang up from her 
kneeling attitude. She looked towards the star, and stood 
very rigid for quite a minute with her head raised and her 
hands clasped. A sudden wind rose and stirred the grass 
on the graves and made a moaning noise. For some reason 
Jean was afraid. He felt as though his blood ran cold when 
Yvonne gave a loud cry and ran towards the gate where he 
was standing. 

“Ow est-ce-qwil y a?” he asked. “What’s the matter ?” 

For a moment or two she did not recognise him. She had 
that queer look of “seeing something.” Then she clutched 
his arm and began weeping, and told him she had seen some- 
thing “terrible.” 

“What kind of thing?” he asked. 

She told him she had seen all the dead rise out of their 
graves. They were all young soldiers, English and French. 
She knew the faces of some of them. They were the boys 


130 Little Novels of Nowadays 


to whom she had played her gramophone tunes in the yard 
of the Hotel de France, when she lay on the horsehair 
couch. Some of them had their heads bandaged, and others 
were swathed in bloody rags, and some wore their gas 
masks, so that they looked like beasts. They all began 
laughing, and one of them said: “We were betrayed, com- 
rades of the great war!” Then all down their lines, others 
said: ““We were betrayed!’ One of them, who seemed their 
leader, spoke again. He said: “We fought for a war to 
end war. The world has betrayed us.” The others said: 
“We are betrayed. There is no peace in the hearts of men.” 
Then the one who seemed like their leader came close to 
Yvonne. She. could see his face., It was. the face of a 
young English officer, very noble and kind, whom she had 
seen in Bailleul. He spoke to her, and said: “Tell France 
to work for peace. Tell the youth of France that another 
war will destroy them as we were destroyed, unless they 
have peace in their hearts. Speak to the heart of youth, 
Yvonne, so that it may lead the world to peace.” 

That was what Yvonne told Jean. He listened to her 
with astonishment and a sense of fear. He said. several 
times: “C’est idiot cal’?—“That’s ridiculous!’—but all the 
same he was troubled. 

If Yvonne were touchée—“dotty”—as Suzanne said, it 
would be easy to understand. But she was wonderfully 
serene and gay, and full of common sense in daily life. 
She was quick to make little jokes. She added up the 
books of the Coq d’Or, three rows of figures on each big 
page, and never made a mistake. No, she had more sense 
than any girl of St. Pol. Yet she believed she had seen the 
dead rise from their graves. She said she had heard them 
speak. She repeated the very words. While Jean Berthoult 
said, “All that’s ridiculous,” some voice inside his head 
said; \Perhaps)it (is ‘trueu. 4) Certailyy it aisy Teese ates 
a warning to France of future war. Unless youth works 
for peace. The young soldiers, perhaps, who had escaped 
the massacre by a fluke of luck. Like himself! ’Creé 
Nom! Like himself!’ 

Yvonne said nothing about that strange happening in the 


The Vistons of Yvonne 131 


cemetery to her parents at supper that night. Yet later 
she must have told her mother, and Madame Monnier must 
have told Bertrand, her husband, for Jean, lying in his bed 
that night in his garret room, heard the voices of husband 
and wife talking—talking, instead of Bertrand’s habitual 
snores within ten minutes of dropping his boots to the 
bare boards. Once Bertrand shouted out some angry words 
which Jean heard through the big crack in the floor below 
his bed. 

PC eshudiol, tort cal’ it's ridiculous, all’ that!’ 

It was his own phrase of incredulity, but in the tone of 
Bertrand’s voice there was fear as well as anger. 

For some weeks Yvonne was busy in the usual way, 
making beds, laying the tables, helping Suzanne and her 
mother in the kitchen. She seemed almost quite happy to 
Jean, who watched her with moody eyes. Only she had 
moments, now and then, when her spirit seemed to with- 
draw from her surroundings, and she was lost in her own 
thoughts. Several times she caught Jean’s eyes fixed upon 
her, and at such times she became a little pale, as though 
they shared a terrible secret together. 

A strange thing happened again at noonday in the great 
cornfield which sweeps away southwards from the Arras 
road. Yvonne and Jean were walking among the stooks on 
a Sunday morning after church time. It was the first time 
they had walked together like this for pleasure. Jean was 
in his best clothes and felt awkward and self-conscious, 
but happy because he was beside Yvonne, who wore a frock 
the colour of lilac and a straw hat with a big red rose. 

“How peaceful it is here,” she said. “No shadow of the 
war falls on these fields, though not far away is the deso- 
lation of devastated France.” 

“T remember marching across these fields in the second 
month of the war,” said Jean. ‘‘They were in stubble, as 
now. It seems only yesterday, though sometimes a hundred 
years ago.” 

They sat down with their backs to a wheatsheaf. Jean 
sucked a straw and watched a grasshopper on a withered 
leate 


ko2 Little Novels of Nowadays 


Presently Yvonne stood up, lcoking up into the sky as 
she had done in the cemetery. 

“Do you see?” she asked Jean, in a strange, frightened 
voice. 

“T see an old crow going home,” said Jean. 

“Do you not hear?” she asked. 

“T hear the grasshoppers chirruping and the larks sing- 
ing,” said Jean. “What are you staring at?” 

Her eyes were wide open, all the colour ebbed from her 
face, and she stood very rigid. 

Jean sprang up and went towards her, and spoke roughly: 

“What the devil is the matter with you?” he asked. 

She began to tremble like a victim of shell-shock, and 
then caught hold of his arm and began to weep. 

“They have gone,” she said. “It was the war in the 
air. The sky was full of aeroplanes. There were thou- 
sands of them, raining down destruction with poison gas. 
I heard a great cry go up from France. It was the cry of 
death. Then an aeroplane came swooping very low, and 
close to me a voice spoke very clearly and said: ‘So it will 
happen if there is no peace in the heart of youth.’ After 
that there was a great silence, and all the world seemed 
dead.” 

“You are mad,” said Jean. “You are an imbecile.” 

He spoke brutally, but he was scared and awe-stricken. 
He did not believe that Yvonne was mad. Against his will, 
his common sense, his hatred of mysteries outside the com- 
monplace, he believed that this girl heard things and saw 
things which other people could not see or hear. 

They walked back again to the Coq d’Or silently. In the 
courtyard, before going in, Yvonne whispered to him: 

“Do not say a word to my father and mother. They 
would be unhappy. But, somehow, I must tell the young 
men of France. They must work for peace, or France 
will be destroyed.” 

“Bah!” said Jean. “Take my advice and do not speak 
of it. They will take you away and put you in a home for 
imbeciles.” 


The Visions of Yvonne 133 


She became deathly pale, and made the sign of the Cross 
upon her forehead and heart. 

It seems to me plain, from all the information I can get 
—a good deal from Jean Berthoult—that the girl became 
convinced at this time that she had received a special reve- 
lation which bade her preach the spirit of peace to the youth 
of France. At first she began in a timid way to talk to 
the young farmers who came on market days to the table 
d’hote of the Coq d’Or. At that time there were strained 
relations between England and France, who did not see eye 
to eye on the subject of German reparations and other 
matters of world policy. There was much wild talk, in the 
old style, about “perfide Albion,” and those young farmers 
of Picardy and Artois, who had all been soldiers in the 
Great War, accused England of betraying the interests of 
France in all parts of the world. Yvonne waited at table 
on them, with Madame Monnier and Suzanne, and often 
at these times she startled the company at the long table by 
rebuking them for ingratitude towards the English, who 
had made such. great sacrifice of blood in the soil of France. 

“But for the help of the English,” she said more than 
once, “our dear France would be destroyed.” 

At another time, when all the talk was about the “sales 
Boches’—those German beasts who were refusing to pay 
their debts and already preparing for revenge, she silenced 
all the clamour by a few strange words. 

“We must be chivalrous to Germany and not press them 
too hard. Unless we kill their hatred, and our own, by a 
spirit of peace in the brotherhood of youth, there will be 
another war worse than the last, and France will be de- 
stroyed.” 

“Tais-toi!’ growled Bertrand Monnier. “Be silent, 
Yvonne. What do you know of politics?” 

He was afraid that his daughter’s words might offend 
his customers. 

They were not offended. There was not one of them 
there who did not know that Yvonne had lain paralysed 
for many years, and had suddenly been cured. Because of 


134 Little Novels of Nowadays 


‘her strange history, and her delicate look, and the? child- 
like purity of her face, they were more tolerant of her 
words than they would have been, perhaps, if an ordinary 
woman had spoken them. Some of them laughed loudly 
and chaffed her. | 

“You can’t treat tigers with chivalry, little one. They go 
on wallowing in their muck.” 

“Your daughter is pro-Boche, Bertrand!” 

“Some English officer captured her heart in time of war!” 

“If there’s another war we will finish the Boche next 
time! No Treaty of Versailles, letting them off at every 
point. We'll smash them to bits, from the Rhine to 
Berlin.” 

But there were other young men at the table who took 
up Yvonne’s argument. 

“Win or lose, another war would finish France. That’s 
certain. Mlle. Yvonne is right. We must educate people 
towards the international idea. Peace and democracy.” 

“Bah! German democracy is a sham. They’re all mili- 
tarists.” 

“German Labour desires peace, like all working folk.” 

Yvonne spoke again. 

“The youth that died will be betrayed if the last war 
leads to new conflict. They fought in a war to end war.” 

Some of the men laughed again. 

“We used to talk like that in 14. It was our simplicity.” 

But again some of the others spoke seriously. 

“Mile. Yvonne tells the truth which the world has for- 
gotten. It was for that ideal we fought. We have all been 
betrayed by the politicians.” 

“By the evil in our hearts,” said Yvonne. 

Jean, watching, watching, always with his mind absorbed 
in the mystery of Yvonne, saw that some of the young 
farmers spoke privately to the girl, dawdled about the court- 
yard to get a word with her. He saw her in conversation 
with Henri Chadelaine, of Hesdin, and with young Fouquet, 
of Rollencourt, and with Marcel Lapin, of Beaumerie, 
among others. She spoke to them seriously, with a won- 
derful light in her big eyes, and they went away thought- 


The Visions of Yvonne jist) 


fully, and with a queer, frightened look, as though she had 
told them strange and fearful things. 

In the market place she went about among the stalls 
talking to the young men there, just a few words which 
left them gaping, or with a puzzled look, or, sometimes, 
laughing in a jeering way. 

“What did she say to you just then?” asked Jean of one 
of them, an old comrade of his, named Armand Merville. 

“She said: ‘Youth must work for peace, or France will 
perish!’ What did she mean by that?” 

“God knows!” said Jean. 

“It sounded like a prophecy,’ said Armand Merville. 
“’Cré Nom! She spoke the words like a new Jeanne 
d’Arc. It gave me a creepy sort of feeling.” 

Jean Berthoult was startled by that reference to Jeanne 
d’Arc. He had had the same idea. Yvonne had visions 
like the Maid of Domrémy. And just as the French sol- 
diers in the last war had said ribald things about Jeanne 
d’Arc, at the bottom of their hearts they had believed in 
her as he believed in Yvonne Monnier. 

In some mysterious way she seemed to influence the 
people, and especially the young men, to whom she spoke 
her words about peace. Young Fouquet, of Rollencourt, 
gave up drinking in the estaminets, and spent his evenings 
reading books of history and philosophy. Armand Merville, 
who had been a libertine with the girls in St. Pol, and 
never went near a church, “took religion,” as it was called, 
to the astonishment of his comrades and the anger of his 
former sweethearts. 

It was probably that which excited the girls of the market 
place against the daughter of Bertrand Monnier. Her habit 
of talking to the young farmers who came in with their 
pigs and sheep or the wandering pedlars who sold ribbons 
and laces to the women at the stalls, aroused their sus- 
picion, and then their fury, when such a case happened as 
that of Armand Merville. 

After a war which had killed the flower of French youth 
there were not so many young men that they could afford 
to let a gallant lad like Armand be taken away from them 


136 Little Novels of Nowadays 


by some religious or secret influence. It was clearly trace- 
able to this Yvonne Monnier. She went smiling and whis- 
pering among the young men, and some of them were clean 
daft about her, in some mysterious way which they did not 
trouble to explain to the girls who were ready to drink beer 
with them in the estaminets, or to answer their ribald chaff 
with repartee which was not timid. That kind of girl, 
anyhow, had a secret dislike of one like Yvonne who would 
never speak a coarse word, nor suffer one to be spoken in 
her presence. 

“Why doesn’t she go into a convent?” asked one of them. 
It was Margot, who had come from Lille, thrust out by her 
family, it was said, because of her wild ways. 

“There are no young men in convents, my cabbage,” said 
Louise Bidoux, the sempstress, with a high laugh. “Yvonne 
Monnier has no eyes except for strapping boys.” 

“She talks of peace and love,” said little Marguérite, who 
sold buttons on a stall opposite the Coq d’Or. She winked 
at Louise, and said: “She could give us a few tips’— 
tuyaux was the word she used in French—“on the way to 
catch nice young men.” 

“She’s no better than a slut,” said Louise fiercely. “A 
coquette with the face of a sick baby. They’re always the 
most vicious.” 

Word was passed from one girl to another. Evil words, 
full of envy and malice. There were angry glances at 
Yvonne on the following market day when she came out of 
the Coq d’Or, and, passing between the lines of stalls, looked 
about, it seemed, for some of the young men she knew. 

“Look at her now!” said Louise Bidoux. “Her eyes are 
roving for one of our boys. She is a bad one!” 

There was a little shriek of laughter from Margot when 
Yvonne caught sight of a lad named Pierre Cauchin, who 
had lost an arm in the war, and came into the market place 
with a young heifer. 

Yvonne went up to him, and while they talked toxethenn in 
low voices he stood bareheaded before her, as though she 
were a great lady. 

It was a girl named Diane Voisin who made a scene that 


_ The Visions of Yvonne ios 


might have ended in tragedy. She made a rush at Yvonne 
and grabbed her arm. 

“What are you whispering there to Pierre Cauchin? He 
is my boy, and none of yours. Keep your black eyes off 
his face.” 

“Yes! Diane is right. Clear out of the market place. 
What do we want with you here, stealing our lovers?” 

That was from Louise Bidoux, standing with her arms 
akimbo and with a flushed face and swollen eyes. 

Other girls crowded round, some laughing, others abusing 
Yvonne, a few silent and ashamed of such ill-manners. 

Yvonne seemed taken by surprise. It was clear she had 
no idea of the ill-will against her which had led up to this 
scene. 

“What have I done?” she asked. “I cannot understand! 
I was only speaking to Pierre of the misery of war and 
the need of young men with peace in their hearts.” 

“Go and tell that to your grandmother!” shouted Louise. 
“We all know what’s behind that baby face of yours.” 

She uttered a frightful and obscene word, which brought 
a hot wave of colour into Yvonne's face. 

“God forgive you, Louise,” she said. 

Those words seemed to infuriate Louise Bidoux. She 
turned sideways to a stall and picked up a potato and threw 
it full at Yvonne’s face. It struck her a glancing blow on 
the forehead, so that she reeled a little, but did not fall. 

It was a signal for other things to be thrown. Diane 
Voisin hurled a cabbage, and another struck Yvonne from 
other hands. 

She stood there, amazed yet courageous. She did not 
attempt to run away, but crossed her hands on her breast. 
Real harm might have come to her but for Jean, who sud- 
denly strode into the fray shoving the girls on one side with 
his strong arms. 

“°-Cré Nom!’ he shouted in a loud voice. “What’s the 
matter here? If you throw another thing at Mademoiselle 
Yvonne I’ll beat you black and blue. Every one of you.” 

His presence stopped further violence. But they made 
him the victim of their abuse. 


138 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“You're one of her lovers! A fine lover who lets his 
wench make eyes at all the other girls’ boys.” 

“Shut your beaks,” said Jean. 

Yvonne put her hand on his arm. Together they left 
the market place, followed by the jeers of some of the 
girls, and harsh screams of laughter from Louise Bidoux 
and Diane Voisin. 

Some account of that scene seems to have reached the 
curé of St. Pol, for that same day he called at the Coq 
d’Or and asked to see Yvonne, and remained with her in 
the private parlour for more than an hour. 

He was a tall, youngish man, with a deep scar down one 
side of his face which had been cut open by a German 
bayonet in the trenches at Fricourt in the early days of 
the war, when, like thousands of French priests, he had 
fought as a simple soldier. Afterwards he had reached the 
rank of sergeant, and had been three times cited before the 
army for valour. He had a brother who was Canon of 
Notre Dame, in Paris and a fashionable preacher who at- 
tracted large congregations because of his rather fiery elo- 
quence. The curé of St. Pol had also a gift of oratory, but 
was a man of great simplicity of soul, to whom his years 
as a soldier had been a martyrdom. 

Doubtless it was that experience which made him pro- 
foundly moved by Yvonne’s “revelations,” or “visions,” as 
he afterwards called them. Her miraculous cure—he did 
not doubt at all the direct act of God in that recovery— 
had happened, of course, before his return to St. Pol after 
the war, but the narratives of Yvonne’s neighbours had 
made a deep impression upon his mind. Apart from that, 
the strange beauty of the girl, the extreme purity of the 
soul that looked out of her dark eyes, her childlike modesty, 
and her spiritual character were of singular attraction to a 
priest whose ordinary parishioners were such girls as those 
in the market place, and the uninteresting bourgeoisie of a 
small provincial town. Yvonne’s message to the heart of 
youth and her “vision” of another war more terrible than 
the world had yet seen, in which the sky of France would 
be thick with aeroplanes raining down poison gas, unless 


The Visions of Yvonne 139 


the new generation of youth were converted to the spirit of 
peace, seemed to him divine in significance and warning. 

There were some newspaper reporters in Paris who after- 
wards ridiculed this provincial curé as a man whose mind 
had been unhinged by “shell-shock,”’ while others accused 
him of endeavouring to dupe simple souls by bolstering up 
the hallucinations of a crazy girl. My own reading of the 
case is that the curé of St. Pol was a man soul-shocked, 
rather than shell-shocked, by the tragedy of war’s experi- 
ence, and of simple faith, touched, perhaps, by romanticism. 
I think, also, that intense love of France, overwhelming in 
its emotion, made him revolt from the thought of another 
war in which the last youth of France would be sacrificed, 
even if victorious. 

After his interview with Yvonne in the parlour of the 
Coq d’Or, the curé was completely under the spell of her 
strange “message.” Several letters which he wrote at this 
time to his brother, the Canon of Notre Dame, show the 
great emotion which stirred in him. Like Jean Berthoult 
and Armand Merville, he was reminded of the peasant 
heroine of France, and he went as far as to call Yvonne 
“our new Jeanne d’Arc.” 

In his sermons he touched constantly upon the text of 
“Blessed are the peacemakers,” and Christ’s command to 
forgive our enemies. He alluded to Yvonne in all but name 
when he said that to one soul in their midst the vision had 
been vouchsafed of the terror of future war, if the youth 
of France failed to exorcise the devil of hatred from their 
hearts, and did not work for a brotherhood of humanity. 

Out of his own experiences he drew a dreadful picture 
of war’s horrors—but child’s play, he said, to what would 
happen in another war—which caused a sensation among his 
little congregation so profound that one girl was carried out 
in a swoon, and a young man from Rollencourt had had a 
renewal of shell-shock and shook as though with ague. 

Such words gave offence to some members of the congre- 
gation. Madame le Baronne de Beaumerie, an old lady of 
seventy-five, who boasted proudly of sixteen grandchildren 
killed in the war, coughed loudly during one of the curé’s 


140 Little Novels of Nowadays 


sermons, and afterwards wrote a letter to his bishop accus- 
ing him of Bolshevism. 

In the parlours, cafés, and estaminets of St. Pol and the 
neighbouring villages, there were excited conversations on 
the subject of the curé’s discourses, with reference to the 
mysterious influence of Yvonne Monnier. This was doubt- 
less exaggerated, and with each exaggeration rumour spread 
in a fantastic way, not merely in St. Pol, but gradually all 
over Picardy and Artois, as pedlars, young farmers visiting 
distant folk, travelling tinkers, and others, told stories of a 
girl saint who prophesied another war, unless France pro- 
claimed a crusade of peace. This girl, Yvonne, said some 
of them, had the power of healing. Those who touched her 
clothes, even, were cured of maladies such as rheumatism, 
gout, sciatica, the ticdouloureux, and St. Vitus’s dance. 
Others affirmed that she spoke on the most familiar terms 
with St. Michael and other angels and saints. On the other 
hand, there were some who said she was an evil creature, 
a paid agent of Bolshevism, a spy of the British, and a 
corrupter of French youth. Her influence over the curé of 
St. Pol, they said, was of a most vicious kind. 

None of these stories reached the ears of Yvonne herself. 
She was only aware of curious glances cast upon her as 
she walked, and presently of an increasing number of 
strangers who came from distant villages to stare at her 
as she went about her work in the Coq d’Or. 

Now and then, strange, sick-looking women in the market 
place would stretch out claw-like hands and touch her as 
she passed. Sometimes they knelt in front of her and asked 
her blessing, which she gave with the simple words, “May 
God bless you,” but with timidity and surprise. 

A young crippled lad, well known in Picardy, because 
he played his flute at weddings:and festivals all over the 
countryside, flung himself down at her feet one day, as she 
walked alone along the Arras road, and implored her to 
heal him as she had been healed. 

“T have no power of healing,” she told him, but he vowed 
that if he might kiss her hands once he would be cured, 
because God loved her. 


The Visions of Yvonne 141 


Laughing, she held out her hands, and he kissed them, 
and then, with a strange, incoherent cry of joy, sprang to 
his feet without his crutches, as he had never done since 
a bullet touched his spine at the beginning of the war. 
Shouting, and laughing, and weeping at the same time, the 
boy—Frangois Meunier—went in advance of Yvonne to St. 
Pol, and proclaimed his cure in the market-place, so that 
when Yvonne came back a little later, pale and serious, and 
much disturbed by what had happened, a crowd gathered 
to meet her, some of them cheering and others kneeling as 
she passed; while even the girls like Louise Bidoux, Diane 
Voisin, and Margot, and others who had flung cabbages at 
her, were silent and disconcerted. 

Dr. Hervé, and others who examined Francois Meunier 
after this occurrence, pronounced his cure to be a case of 
“intense auto-suggestion, consequent upon emotional neu- 
rosis,” but, as in the case of Yvonne’s own recovery, this 
scientific explanation did not disturb the conviction of the 
majority of simple folk that it was a miraculous affair. 

Bertrand Monnier and his wife went about their work in 
the Coq d’Or with the pretence that their daughter was an 
ordinary jeune fille, of delicate health perhaps, but other- 
wise normal. They pooh-poohed all the stories concerning 
her mysterious powers and prophecies. Sometimes Ber- 
trand had violent outbursts of anger when his customers 
questioned him on the subject, and thundered out his 
affirmation of “C’est idiot, tout ¢a’—All that’s ridiculous! 
But in their own bedroom the husband and wife whispered | 
together, and raised their hands to heaven, and quarrelled 
with each other about the mystery of Yvonne and the way 
to deal with it. 

“She'll ruin our business!” said Bertrand. “Already 
some of our customers have gone over to the Hotel d’Artois, 
because they don’t care to mix their wine with politics and 
religion.” 

“Yes, but our clientéle still grows because of Yvonne’s 
reputation,” said his wife. “Young men come from a dis- 
tance to get one glimpse of her.” 

“My belief is we should do well to put her in a convent, 


142 Little Novels of Nowadays 


or pack her off to Aunt Mathilde, in Paris. This business 
begins to get on my nerves.” 

“She is a model daughter to us, Bertrand 

“T don’t deny that. But why couldn’t she remain as she 
used to be when I carried her about from her chair to her 
bed °” 

“It would be better if Jean married her,’ 
Monnier in a low voice. 

Bertrand gazed at her with his mouth open. 

“Jean! . . . He hasn’t ten francs in the world. And the 
girl isn’t the marrying sort.” 

“Jean worships her very shadow. He watches over her 
like a faithful dog.” 

“He’s a good lad,” said Bertrand. “T’'ll think over your 
idea, wife. Marriage, babies, all the toil and moil of wedded 
life might cure the girl of that queer stuff in her head.” 

With argument like that the husband and wife talked 
together about their daughter, as afterwards they confessed. 

Bertrand spoke to Jean in the stable yards that day with 
gruff good humour, but so abruptly that the lad was startled. 

“You'd better marry Yvonne, mon vieux. Why not? 
She’s a good girl, and one day the Coq d’Or will be worth 
good money. I’d not be ashamed of you as my son-in-law.” 

Jean stammered his reply, all red in the face, and then 
pale. 

“Nothing doing in that way. Mlle. Yvonne is too good— 
for me or any one. A saint of God, monsieur!” 

“Bah! said Bertrand. “Marriage would cure all that 
nonsense. It puts every woman into her right place. I 
leave it to you. You have my permission, gladly given, 
Jean Berthoult.” 

Jean muttered something about Mademoiselle Yvonne 
having great work to do in the world. But Bertrand did 
not listen to him, and went out of the yard with a gloomy 
look. 

Apart from those few moments of strange, trance-like 
vision, first in the soldiers’ cemetery, and then in the corn- 
field, I can find no evidence that Yvonne was abnormal at 
other times, beyond the unusual thoughtfulness and spiritual 


1°? 


4 


said Madame 


The Visions of Yvonne 143 


emotion of any girl who has lain long paralysed before 
sudden cure, and all that time has heard the noise of guns 
and watched the sacrifice of young manhood. It is true 
that she believed herself to be dedicated to a mission of 
peace, but apart from all mysticism and “supernatural” 
experience, that might have happened to her. Perhaps even 
that idea might not have developed as a fixed faith and pur- 
pose in her spirit had it not been for the instigation— 
encouragement is a better word—of the curé of St. Pol, 
who believed firmly that she was a handmaiden of the Lord, 
destined to lead France in a crusade for universal peace. 
Constantly he came to question her upon the duty of French 
youth to avert the horror of new wars, and it is difficult to 
know whether he was more astonished and uplifted by the 
simplicity and common sense of her answers, or by the 
spiritual fervour of her belief that the warnings which had 
come to her were divine in their manifestation. 

Be that as it may, it was due to the influence of Yvonne 
Monnier upon his mind and purpose that the curé of St. 
Pol organised a society of young Frenchmen, under the 
name of the League of Peace, which led to serious political 
disturbances far beyond the parish of St. Pol. At first that 
League included only a dozen or so of those young men 
who had been especially touched by the words and per- 
sonality of Yvonne. Jean Berthoult was one of them, and 
among the others were Francois Meunier, Henri Chadelaine, 
of Hesdin, young Fouquet, of Rollencourt, Marcel Lapin, 
of Beaumerie, and Armand Merville. They met once a 
week in the curé’s parlour, and made some simple “resolu- 
tion” to work and pray for world peace. They also pledged 
themselves to persuade their comrades to join the League. 

This organisation, so modestly started, grew and spread 
with startling rapidity, mostly among ex-soldiers who had 
returned to their farms and hamlets. From the market 
place of St. Pol, where tongues wagged apace on the sub- 
ject, the news and idea of the League travelled far afield. 
Probably some of the travelling salesmen, and the tinkers, 
and others, talked about it in their wanderings. The curé 
of St. Pol was overwhelmed with correspondence, asking 


144 Little Novels of Nowadays 


for information, especially with regard to the “visions” of 
Yvonne Monnier. Local branches were established, and 
some of the members, undoubtedly, were actuated by po- 
litical motives of a revolutionary character—Communism, 
Syndicalism, and so forth—and desired to use the new 
“League of Peace,” with its religious sanction, as a moral 
cloak for evil and destructive purposes. It is certain that 
several of them had nothing but contempt for its associa- 
tion with the mystical character with which rumour en- 
dowed Yvonne Monnier. 

The curé of St. Pol, simple man as he was, had no notion 
that this evil element was creeping into his “League,” and 
made no inquiries as to the character of those who applied 
for membership. Each name was entered by him with joy 
as another pledge to world peace. That was regrettable, 
because it was the inclusion of certain young men well 
known to the police in Paris as revolutionary characters, 
among them Charles Benoist, the author of many leaflets 
of Bolshevist propaganda circulated secretly in the fac- 
tories of the working-class districts of Paris, which attracted 
the attention of the police authorities to this ‘League of 
Peace,” and caused a hostile report to be submitted to the 
Government. | 

Through the police the news leaked out to the Press, and 
paragraphs appeared ridiculing Yvonne Monnier as a de- 
generate and half-witted girl, and attacking the curé of St. 
Pol as a corrupter of youth, a traitor to France, and a 
renegade priest. 

A reporter was sent down by La Nation to investigate 
the affair, and, under the guise of a young man ardent for 
world peace, obtained interviews both with Yvonne and the 
curé. His account, with photographs, filled the front page 
of La Nation, and was written, very cleverly, in a spirit of 
irony and caricature, which excited the laughter of Paris. 

Following the laughter there was a great deal of hostile 
comment, and one paper went so far as to call for the arrest 
and imprisonment of the curé and his “female impostor,” 
Yvonne Monnier, on a charge of conspiring against the 
safety of the Republic. On the other hand, this publicity 


The Visions of Yvonne 145 


attracted the attention of large numbers of young men of 
idealistic hopes in the future of world peace, who enrolled 
themselves as members of the League. 

The crisis happened in the month of February of last 
year, when the political situation of France was troubled 
by the reactions of the Washington Conference, the failure 
of Germany in the matter of reparations, and strained rela- 
tions with England. These causes of political passion were 
entirely outside the simple interests of the curé and Yvonne, 
_ who exalted the spirit of peace without entering into po- 
litical controversy of niurrow or national limitations. But 
it was unfortunate, and, indeed, tragic, that this heat of 
politics should have coincided with the march to Paris of 
the “Peace Leagtiers.” 

The idea of that march originated, I believe, with that 
Canon of Notre Dame who was the brother of the curé of 
St. Pol. Fascinated by the accounts he had received in 
private letters from his brother, of Yvonne’s “visions” and 
sanctity, and ardently in sympathy with the spiritual pur- 
pose of the League (I am told also that he was not free 
from political bias against the Poincaré Government), he 
seems to have made the rash and ill-advised suggestion that 
Yvonne should come with her adherents to Paris and preach 
a crusade of peace and virtue in a city which, according to 
the canon, was “utterly demoralised by the intoxication of 
victory, and plunging down the road to perdition.” 

When the idea was first mooted to Yvonne by the curé 
of St. Pol, she became intensely pale, and it was clear that 
for a time her courage failed her at the thought of such 
an adventure in the public gaze. The idea of Paris also 
frightened her. She had never been in any town larger than 
Bailleul, and to her imagination Paris was monstrous and 
overwhelming. 

“T am only a simple girl,” she said. “They will laugh at 
me in Paris.” 

“To be laughed at for God’s sake is the suffering way 
of all saints,” said the curé. 

“But I am no saint,” protested Yvonne. “I am but a 
weak and ignorant girl.” 


146 Little Novels of Nowadays 


Afterwards she yielded to the idea, reproaching herself 
for cowardice because of her refusal. 

To Jean Berthoult she revealed her fears and her resolve. 

“T am afraid no good will come of this, dear Jean. Paris 
will mock at us. But if it is God’s will, as the curé says, 
I dare not disobey.” 

“How does he know that it is God’s will?” growled Jean. 

From the first he was hostile to the idea, hating the 
thought of Yvonne appearing so publicly before the mockery 
of the world, and fearing for her health. Yet, when he saw 
that her mind was made up, his fidelity was so strong that 
he was the first to volunteer to be one of her band. Indeed, 
it was more than volunteering. 

“I go with you,” he said, with a kind of stubborn in- 
sistence. 

Bertrand Monnier and his wife were dismayed by the 
whole affair, yet also secretly flattered by the thought that 
their daughter should make a great appearance in Paris, 
escorted by the best young men of her district. After vio- 
lent altercations with the curé and much argument with 
Yvonne, they gave their consent. 

There was a striking touch of medizvalism about this 
march to Paris. Some fifty young men of the peasant and 
farming class assembled in St. Pol, and gathered round a 
banner which had been worked for the curé by some of his 
old women. It was a great silken banner on which were em- 
broidered the words: “Pax Domini Sit Semper V obiscum’— 
“The peace of the Lord be with you always.” This was 
carried by young Fouquet, of Rollencourt, and Francois 
Meunier, the former cripple who had thrown away his 
crutches. 

Yvonne was placed in a farm cart driven by Jean. She 
wore a white frock with a blue sash, and when she stood 
up in the cart to speak some words to the crowd in the 
market place, a murmur of astonishment rose because of 
her pale beauty and saintly look. 

“She is like a young Madonna,” said one of the crowd. 

Others spoke the name of Jeanne d’Arc. 


The Visions of Yvonne 147 


Yet there was hostility as well as admiration in the 
market place, and but for the presence of the curé, who 
stood in front of the cart holding a crucifix, there might 
have been some such scene as when the market girls had 
assaulted Yvonne. Shrill cries of abuse rose around the 
group of young men and the girl in their midst. 

Yvonne’s words, in which she proclaimed her obedience 
to a duty which she had not desired, and spoke of her call 
to arouse the spirit of peace in the heart of youth, were 
drowned by derisive laughter and foul words in the argot 
of the market place. Opinion and emotion, however, were 
divided, and some of the women wept and others knelt 
down to receive the curé’s blessing, as the little procession 
started on its way to Paris, in the direction of Amiens and 
by way of Doullens. 

From villages on the way other recruits came from the 
fields and farmsteads, mostly young men of a class similar 
to those of St. Pol. At each village the procession halted, 
the banner was raised, and Yvonne, standing in her farm 
cart, with Jean at the horse’s head, spoke a few words to 
the assembled folk. I have had no verbatim report of her 
words. From Jean’s account she seems to have spoken with 
a spiritual fervour that gave a deeper meaning to very 
simple words. She appealed to the young manhood of 
France to prevent a future war, which would destroy civili- 
sation itself in a rain of death from the sky, and begged 
them to have peace in their hearts towards all men. That 
was the sum of all her little orations. There was in them 
no word of politics, no accusation against the French Gov- 
ernment, no talk of militarism. 

She spoke often to Jean as he drove the cart while she 
sat behind, surrounded by her escort on foot. 

Once she said to him: 

“T have a feeling that I shall never go back to St. Pol.” 

“That is ridiculous,” said Jean. “What makes you think 
that ?” 

“Something tells me,” she said. 

At another time she spoke of her strange cure. 


b 


148 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“T am sorry sometimes that I do not lie still on my old 
horsehair couch, playing the gramophone to English soldiers. 
I was very happy then, except for the sacrifice of men.” 

“You are not happy now?” asked Jean. 

“T am a little afraid,” she said. “People look at me 
with anger and mockery. I would rather be back washing 
dishes in the Coq d’Or.” 

“Soon we'll be back again,” said Jean. 

At night Yvonne slept in village inns. The curé of St. 
Pol lodged with the parish priests. Jean slept in the farm 
cart, and the other men lay in barns and outhouses. Each 
morning the procession started early again, in the direction 
of Paris. The men became rather footsore and silent. The 
curé limped sadly, because an old wound in his left leg 
troubled him. But he had a look of great happiness because 
of the new recruits that swelled his ranks as the march 
continued. By the time they had reached Picquigny, on the 
outskirts of Amiens, there were nearly two hundred men 
marching behind the banner of peace. 

It was in Amiens that the first outburst of hostility took 
place. Along the main street, called the Street of the Three 
Pebbles, there was a dense crowd. The newspapers had 
printed descriptions of the march on its way down from 
St. Pol, and had labelled it as “Anti-militarist and Pro- 
Boche.” Yvonne was slandered as a girl of “notorious 
life,’ and as “an epileptic of degenerate morals.” 

As the procession advanced, there was a loud “booing,” 
from people on the sidewalks. Women shook their fists 
and men jeered. The name of traitor was hurled at the 
curé of St. Pol. Outside the station, in the big “place,” 
when Jean pulled up his horse and Yvonne stood up in the 
cart to speak to the crowd, a tumult arose, ugly in its expres- 
sion of human intolerance. 

“Better get out of this,” said Jean, speaking to the curé. 
“T don’t like the look of things.” 

“It 1s what we may expect,” said the curé. “Our Lord 
suffered from the insults of the mob before His message 
reached the hearts of men. Courage, my dear lad!” 

“Bah!” said Jean, sullenly. “Do you think I’m afraid 


The Visions of Yvonne 149 


for my own sake? I don’t give a curse for this canaille. 
I think only of Mile. Yvonne and her safety.” 

The curé mounted the cart by the side of Yvonne and 
spoke to the crowd. But they would not hear him. The 
word “Bolshevik!” was shouted at him, and but for the 
number of “Leaguers,” and their sturdy look, the mob 
would have upset the cart. Yvonne was white, but she 
stood clasping her hands without any word of fear. She 
spoke very gently to the people around. Only the words, 
“Peace! Peace!” could be heard, because of the surging to 
and fro and the angry voices. 

As a result of this hostile demonstration, some of the 
young men who had marched in the procession showed signs 
of failing resolution, and began to quarrel with each other. 
It was ridicule which seemed to hurt them most, and scared 
them at the idea of entering Paris. A few showed signs 
of physical cowardice, and six slunk away into the back — 
streets of Amiens and did not rejoin the ranks. Among 
them was Marcel Lapin, whom the curé had regarded as 
one of his stalwarts. He went off after a few words with 
Jean Berthoult. 

“T’m going back. This is a farce. Also, my boots are 
bursting.” 

“Tt’s your guts that fail,” said Jean brutally. “You were 
always a coward.” 

“Not such a sacred fool as you are, mon vieux. Yvonne 
and the curé are leading you into a mare’s nest. There’s 
a good train back to St. Pol.” 

“There’s a rabbit hutch nearer than that, Marcel Lapin,” 
said Jean. 

The curé was wounded by this desertion, but comforted 
himself by the thought of Judas. 

There were no sensational episodes between Amiens and 
Paris, which took five days’ walking, with frequent halts. 
Two reporters from Paris hung on the outskirts of the 
march and sent extravagant accounts to their papers, arous- 
ing prejudice in advance. 

Yvonne was much fatigued, and her bodily strength 
seemed to wane, so that she drooped in the cart behind 


150 Little Novels of Nowadays 


Jean. The thought of Paris still alarmed her, not’ on ac- 
count of personal danger, but because it loomed in her 
imagination as a city crowded with evil. 

To Jean she spoke her secret thoughts. They two seemed 
to be close to each other, and alone, as she sat in the cart 
and he drove, with the young men tramping ahead of them 
and behind. 

“I am very grateful to you for all your foving care, 
Jean,” she told him once, and that made him flush red to 
the tips of his ears. 

“I’m your servant,” he said, in his gruff way. 

“My lover,” she answered simply. “I am very sorry 
you get so little reward, dear Jean. But I am different from 
other girls. One day you will marry a good, strong 
woman.” 

“Never that,” said Jean, “so long as you remain unwed.” 

“That will be always,” she answered again. “I am not 
meant to marry.” 

Farther down the road she spoke of her love for France. 

“Willingly would I die to serve our dear country,” she 
said. “I should die happy if, by one word, I could make 
it safer from future war.” 

“Living folk serve it better than the dead,” growled Jean. 

“Perhaps not,” said Yvonne. “The spirit of those who 
died in the war is working for us. It is they who will build 
the new France.” 

Then, later, she spoke of Paris. 

“T must be brave in its streets,” she said. “Even now I 
seem to hear its roar of traffic and the mocking laughter of 
its crowds. It sounds in my ears like the breaking of 
waves.” 

“Paris is only a bigger St. Pol,” said Jean. “I was there 
in the war once or twice. Not a bad place, but full of 
profiteers ana foolish wenches. I prefer St. Pol.” 

Sometimes the procession went down lonely roads with 
woods on either side. The curé sang hymns, which were 
taken up in a chorus by some of the young peasants. 
Yvonne loved the light of the sky, making a tracery through 
the bare woods, and delighted in the birds that twittered 


The Visions of Yvonne 151 


on the boughs. But always in the villages there were 
crowds gathered at the news of their coming, and a mingling 
of hostile cries with friendly greetings. 

A woman who had lost three sons in the war came to 
kiss Yvonne’s skirt, and said: “Save our little ones from 
the agony of the trenches.” 

A young blind girl came out of a wayside cottage, and 
as Yvonne passed cried out: “I see a shining light! It is 
the way of peace!” 

In another village an old woman shrieked at Yvonne as 
she passed: 

“May you be torn limb from limb, slut of Satan!” 

One night, before the cart stopped outside a village inn, 
there was a rosy light in the sky. “The lights of Paris!” 
shouted one of the men, and the others, mostly peasant lads 
who had never been to Paris, stared at the glow in the sky 
with a kind of awe. 

Yvonne stood up in the cart and gazed also at the flick- 
ering radiance with her hands crossed upon her breast. 

“The heart of France!” she said. “So full of passion 
and loveliness and sin! I never thought I should go there 
one day.” 

“God has led you to its gates, to preach the way of 
peace,” said the curé. “It is a divine mission, m’m’selle. 
We will raise the banner of peace in the heart of Paris.” 

That night Yvonne did not sleep in a wayside inn. The 
innkeeper and his wife refused her a lodging, in spite of 
the curé’s pleading. 

“We had a son killed in the war,” said the man. “We do 
not let our rooms to those who undermine the loyalty of 
France,” 

It was in vain that the curé protested their love of France, 
their devotion to the heroic spirit of youth that died to save 
France, their mission to prevent further sacrifice of youth 
in future strife. The innkeeper was stubborn and insolent, 
and used obscene words. 

It was too late to march farther. The young men were 
tired, and Yvonne at the point of exhaustion. That night 
she lay in the farm cart, covered by Jean’s greatcoat and 


152 Little Novels of Nowadays 


another lent by Fouquet, of Rollencourt. The curé lay be- 
neath the cart and slept as soundly as when he was a soldier 
of France in a hole in the earth. Jean did not sleep at all, 
but stood on guard by the cart, pacing up and down, up and 
down, until once, towards dawn, Yvonne called softly to 
him: 

“Jean, are you there?” 

“Mademoiselle ?” 

He went instantly to the side of the cart and stood on 
the axle and saw that Yvonne was sitting up with the coats 
about her. 

“It is nothing, Jean. I was only a little afraid... 

“Afraid of what?” he asked. 

“To-morrow we enter Paris,” she said, as though that 
explained her fear. 

“T shall be with you,” said Jean. “If there is any trouble 
you have me to defend you. They'll have to walk through 
my body to lay a finger on you.” 

She stretched out her hand and touched his head. 

“You are brave and kind.” 

He took hold of her hand and put it to his lips. 

“T would die for you,” he said simply. 

“Perhaps in heaven we shall be together,” she told him. 
“For ever and ever, Jean.” 

“Without you it is no Heaven for me,” he said. 

Then the curé stirred and called out: 

“Qui est la? Quit parle?” 

Jean stepped down from the axle and said: 

itis nothing. Iikeep euard” 

But the curé was unable to sleep any more and crawled 
out from beneath the cart, and then stood up and paced up 
and down with Jean until the light of day. 

A cottage woman sold them some coffee and bread, which 
brought a little colour into Yvonne’s pale face. The men 
foraged round for their own breakfasts. Then the march 
began again, and at three o’clock on that afternoon they 
reached the outskirts of Paris by the gate of St. Den, and 
at four o’clock passed down the boulevard on the way to 
the Tuileries. The curé marched in front of the farm cart, 


39 


The Visions of Yvonne 153 


and two of the men held aloft the banner with its words of 
peace. 

Yvonne stood in the cart, with her hand on the rail of 
Jean’s seat for support. Behind marched the rustics of 
Picardy and Artois, to the number now of about a hundred. 
Most of them carried stout sticks, cut from the woods to 
help them walk. Their boots had broken, and most of them 
limped a little. They were unwashed and unshaven, and 
straws and dirt stuck to their clothes from their nights in 
barns and outhouses. Under the leadership of the curé of 
St. Pol they sang a hymn as they marched, but some sang 
one line and others another, so that it was not impressive. 

Vast crowds were in the streets to watch them pass, 
typical Parisian crowds, made up of muidinettes, or shop- 
girls, young clerks, the loiterers of the boulevards, and 
young ragamuffins from the Montmartre district. There 
were also a number of terrassiers, or labourers, of the 
roughest kind. What had happened at Amiens was re- 
peated in the streets of Paris inan exaggerated way. There 
was an outburst of booing and hissing, and shrill, hostile 
cries. Some of the midinettes shrieked with laughter at the 
sight of Yvonne standing in the farm cart in her white 
frock and coloured sash. She seemed to them amazingly 
comical. 

It was not until the procession reached the Place de 
VOpéra that the hostile demonstration developed into actual 
conflict. This was due to another procession which ad- 
vanced from the opposite direction. That, too, carried ban- 
ners with the words, “Ligue de la Paix’—‘The League of 
Peace”—but also with provocative words, such as “Death 
to Militarism,” and “Down with Poincaré,” and “Capital- 
ism Means War, Communism Means Peace.” As after- 
wards established, this procession was led by Charles 
Benoist, the professional revolutionary who had been in 
trouble with the police many times before. 

Undoubtedly it was the uninvited adherence of this pro- 
cession which excited the fury of the Parisians and the 
activity of the mounted police. The rustic escort of Yvonne 
Monnier was falsely identified with the destructive policy 


154 Little Novels of Nowadays 


of the Benoist group, and suffered from the confusion of 
leadership. A strong body of the Garde Républicaine came 
at a trot across the Place de l’Opéra and broke up the 
ranks of both processions in the usual way, and at the same 
time there was a wild rush from the mob to seize the ban- 
ners and assault the “Leaguers.” 

Some part of the crowd was animated, no doubt, by 
nothing worse than a spirit of horse-play. But others were 
in an ugly temper at a time when the nerves of Paris were 
on edge owing to political passion and uneasiness. A group 
of young men belonging to a “Royalist” association were 
particularly violent, and made a concerted attack with sticks 
on the peasants from St. Pol. They were joined by a gang 
of terrassiers, who used stones as well as sticks. 

The peasants, who had come to preach the spirit of peace, 
were by no means passive in their resistance to this attack, 
and fought desperately. But they were overwhelmed by 
sheer weight of numbers, and several fell bleeding from 
wounds in the head. One of them, young Fouquet, of Rol- 
lencourt, was trampled to death by the mob surging over 
him when he lay stunned. 

The curé of St. Pol, standing with his back to the cart, 
raised his crucifix, and with horror and pity in his eyes 
cried out continually, “Peace! Peace!” until he was carried 
away by the rush of the crowd. 

Jean Berthoult let the reins fall over the horse’s neck, and 
stepping back into the cart put one arm round Yvonne, 
while his other hand grasped an oak cudgel. 

“Courage, mademoiselle,” he said, “courage!” 

“I am no longer afraid,’ said Yvonne. “I am only 
sorry.” 

She gave a sharp cry and wept a little when she saw 
young Fouquet go down. 

“Courage!” said Jean again. 

Once she tried to speak to the crowd, but the uproar was 
too great for her words to be heard. 

“Youth betrays those who died,” she said to Jean. 

“If only I could reach their heads!” said Jean, swinging 
his cudgel. 


The Visions of Yvonne Y55 


She grasped his hand, and said: “Peace, Jean, peace!” 

It was then that a stone struck her full on the temple. 
Her head fell on to Jean’s shoulder, and a little blood 
spurted on to his face. He felt her go limp on his arm 
before she fell in a heap. He uttered a cry and knelt over 
her. It was ten minutes before the Garde Républicaine 
cleared the crowd away and surrounded the cart where Jean 
was weeping over the body of Yvonne. 

He told me that she spoke to him once again before she 
died. Perhaps she was not conscious of her words. 

“The heart of youth,” she said, and then, with her last 
breath, “Peace.” 

It was her simple message to France and the world. 
There are some—among them Jean Berthoult—who re- 
member it in their hearts. 


VI: THE CASTLE OF ARNSBERG 


NNA RIPPMANN went to school with my sister and 

came to visit us last year—a plump little thing with 
hair like yellow silk and blue eyes, thoroughly German in 
appearance and manner, though she had an English mother. 
I could not get more than a few words from her at first, 
and a timid smile now and then, until she sat up half a 
night pouring out her heart and, towards the end of her 
tale, her tears, and it is in that way that I have gained a 
curious side light on the assassination of Doctor Milheim, 
which was an international sensation when the news came 
over the wires from Berlin. 

The girl was governess at the Schloss, or Castle, of Arns- 
berg—twenty miles or so from Munich—and had charge of 
the children of General Baron von Arnsberg. The general 
had been married three times, and was sixty-eight at the 
end of the war, in which he will be remembered as one of 
the corps commanders of Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. 
Three of his sons had been killed in Flanders, but he still 
had a boy of nineteen—Felix—who had been too young to 
serve, and a boy and a girl of ten and eight, for whose 
education Anna had been engaged before the armistice, when 
they were younger than that. 

Anna’s first glimpse of Heinrich yon Arnsberg was when 
he motored home from Munich with three of his staff 
officers. Following the Emperor’s flight, the declaration of 
the Republic and the signing of the armistice, there had 
been disorderly scenes in the little mining town of Arnsberg, 
where there was a revolutionary element. Many soldiers 
belonging to the miners’ class had demobilised themselves, 
looted the barracks and the provision shops, and even at- 
tacked some of their officers by tearing off their regimental 
badges, so that for safety’s sake they had to change into 

156 


The Castle of Arnsberg 157 


civilian clothes. The new flag of the Republic had been 
hoisted over the post office, barracks and schoolhouse, but 
the old imperial flag still drooped over the Siegfried tower 
of the Schloss by order of the Baroness von Arnsberg, who 
refused very haughtily to obey the demand of a deputation 
of ex-soldiers and workmen to haul it down. That flag 
incident was, perhaps, one reason why a hostile crowd, 
made up of mining men and their wives, gathered each side 
of the stone bridge over the little river which ran below 
the Schloss when a telephone message from Munich in- 
formed the townsfolk of Arnsberg that the general was on 
his way. 

On the other hand, there were many people, mostly shop- 
keepers and farmers, who had no enthusiasm for the new 
Republic and were still moved by a tradition of loyalty and 
sentiment to Heinrich von Arnsberg, not only because of 
his name, which was old in the romance of German history, 
but because of his own character and reputation. In the 
war of 1870 he had won honour as a young cavalry officer. 
In the European War of 1914 to 1918 he had been men- 
tioned in all the dispatches of Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria 
as one of his most trusted generals. Now that he was 
coming home after the immense unrealisable defeat of the 
German Army and nation, in spite of victories which had 
been rung out by the church bells of Arnsberg year after 
year, there were many people, knowing his pride and his 
unshakable belief in final victory—until the last smash— 
who felt pity for the man as they stood waiting for him 
on the bridge. 

The Baroness von Arnsberg, whose eyes bore traces of 
heavy weeping—she was a tall, stately woman, twenty years 
younger than her husband, to whom she was devoted in a 
nervous, timid way—had put on one of her most imposing 
gowns of black silk and stood at the castle gate above the 
bridge, with her two small children at her side. 

Felix, who was the son of General von Arnsberg’s second 
wife, was close behind her, very pale and excited, thought 
Anna, the little governess, who glanced at him once or twice 
until their eyes met. He had just come home from Heidel- 


158 Little Novels of Nowadays 


berg University, and so far had not exchanged a word with 
her beyond a stiff “Guten Morgen,” or “Guten Abend.” 

From afar they heard the sound of a motor horn as the 
general’s car passed through the narrow streets of Arns- 
berg and then came into sight where the road curved beyond 
the stone bridge. The crowd pressed closer to the road- 
way on the bridge itself, and Anna heard a number of 
people cheering as the car slowed down a little. But through 
the cheers another sound broke. It was a hostile demon- 
stration by miners and ex-soldiers. 

Above all the other noise one voice rang out with an 
angry shout: “Down with those who have led Germany to 
ruin and defeat!” 

Quite clearly Anna saw one figure—a tall, broad-shoul- 
dered man, who, afterwards she heard, was a mine fore- 
man named Franz Dachs—force his way through the group 
of women and step close to the general’s car as it crawled 
slowly across the bridge. 

The man raised his fist and shouted again: “A curse on 
those who made the war and lost it!” 

General von Arnsberg, who was in full uniform, with a 
cloth cover on his spiked helmet, was sitting in the open 
car, looking towards the castle gate and saluting the towns- 
folk who cheered him. By his side was a young cavalry 
officer in a sky-blue cloak, and opposite were two other 
officers of the corps staff. 

Anna saw for the first time the heavy figure and massive 
face—slashed by three sword cuts in his young duelling 
days—of the home-coming general. 

At the insult shouted at him by the man in the crowd 
his face flushed ruddily. His hand, which had been at the 
salute, was suddenly clenched, and, leaning sideways out of 
the car, he struck the fellow a biow full in the face, so that 
he staggered and dropped like a felled ox. A kind of gasp 
rose from the crowd, followed by a roar of rage mingled 
with cheers and laughter. 

“Schweinehund!” said the general, as the car came to a 
halt at the castle gateway. 

Anna heard him speak the word with a short, guttural 


The Castle of Arnsberg 159 


laugh. Then, lightly for so huge a man, he skipped out of 
the car, raised his hand in salute again, standing stiffly with 
his heels together, before kissing his wife on both cheeks. 

“Welcome home, dear and honoured husband,” said the 
poor lady, white-faced because of the episode at the gate, 
apart from all other emotion which stirred in her. 

The three staff officers stood at a pace to the rear of the 
general, and the castle servants behind the baroness and her 
two children were motionless in the presence of their 
master. 

The general glanced for a moment at the imperial flag 
above the turret, and his eyes moistened and some spasm 
of emotion twitched his mouth. But he spoke loudly in his 
harsh, guttural voice, so that all could hear. 

“T come back, dear wife, from an army undefeated and 
ever-glorious in the field of war, but stabbed in the back 
by the forces of revolution and disorder and cowardice. 
God save our Kaiser and Fatherland!” 

Then he patted the heads of his small boy and girl, 
kissed Felix—his eldest son, now that three were dead— 
and presented the staff officers to his wife. The gate of 
the castle had already been closed, shutting out all view of 
the crowd, though their voices could still be heard, with 
cheers and booings in a tumult. 

Anna’s eyes were fixed on Felix, that boy of nineteen, 


back from Heidelberg in time for this home-coming. During °~ 


his father’s speech he had stood at attention, but quite un- ~ 
consciously, perhaps, he gave an almost imperceptible shake - 
of the head, as though disagreeing with that phrase “un- 
defeated in the field of war” and the words that followed 
about “stabbed in the back.’’ When his father kissed him 
he blushed up to the roots of his close-cropped hair and 
looked very boyish and handsome and shy. So Anna 
thought, as she told us. 

That night dinner was laid in the old banqueting hall, 
which had not been used during the general’s absence. In 
addition to the three staff officers there were about twelve 
guests, including three of the general’s old comrades in 
arms, veterans, like himself, of the war of 1870, with their 


160 Little Novels of Nowadays 


ancient and wrinkled dames, who were their faithful and 
obedient wives. There were also Count Fritz von Arnheim 
and his beautiful young wife; the pastor of the Lutheran 
Church of Arnsberg, with his enormously fat lady; Pro- 
fessor Schwarz, famous in Germany for his great works on 
German civilisation and world power; with a few other 
intimate friends. 

Little Anna Rippmann had been astounded and not a little 
frightened at receiving an invitation to join this distin- 
guished company. It came from the general himself, who 
spoke to her in the corridor at the head of the great stair- 
way as she was slipping away to the nursery to read 
Grimm’s Fairy Tales to the two little ones, Rupprecht and 
Elsa. He was pacing slowly along with his wife, arm in 
arm, when Anna flattened herself against the panelled wall, 
wishing that it might open and swallow her. ; 

“Who is that?” he asked in his big gruff yoice. 

Anna dropped a curtsey in the German way as the 
baroness spoke her name and explained her position in the 
house. 

“She teaches little Rupprecht and Elsa. She is very kind 
and good.” 

“So Tax 

The general’s eyes stared at Anna so that she seemed to 
dwindle to midget size as he towered above her. 

“What do you teach them, Fraéulem? Reading, writing, 
music? That is good. But not enough. You must teach 
them to honour the Kaiser and love the Fatherland, and 
hate all the enemies who have ruined our country. Teach 
them to hate, Fraulein, lies, and cowards, and treachery, and 
the swine who have betrayed us from within.” 

Anna was speechless. She tried desperately to say some- 
thing, but her lips moved without a sound. There was 
something terrible to her in the general’s reiteration of that 
word “hate.” There had been too much hate in the world, 
she thought, and it had caused a sum of agony and death 
that God alone could reckon. She had tried to teach the 
general’s children the spirit of love, not with great success 


The Castle of Arnsberg 161 


in little Ruporecht’s case. Now this old man demanded an 
education in hate. 

He smiled at her under eyebrows like spiders’ legs. 

“You will dine with us to-night, Fraulein.” 

Dismay at this command gave her bacls her speech. 

“IT have supper with little Rupprecht and Elsa every 
night. They like me to read to them.” . 

“To-night,” said the general, “you will dine with my 
euests.” He turned to his wife and added, “That is so, is 
it not, dearest heart?” 

The Baroness von Arnsberg gave a wintry but not un- 
kindly smile as she glanced at the governess. 

“What the general desires is my pleasure also. You will 
put on your best frock, Fraulein?” 

“A thousand thanks, gnddige Frau!” 


In her little white frock she sat at the end of the table, 
next to the pastor’s fat lady and opposite Felix von Arns- 
berg, who said, “Guten Abend,” as usual, and then was 
utterly silent, next to the pastor. 

Anna remembered this banquet so that her description 
was vivid of the great room with its high oak roof and its 
big portraits of Frederick William the Great, William I of 
Prussia, Von Moltke, Bismarck, and those who had been 
Emperor and Empress until their flight to Holland. The 
room was lighted with electric torches in iron brackets. 

At the head of the table the general, still in uniform, and 
wearing his decorations and Iron Cross, had the Count and 
Countess von Arnheim on his right and left hand. He drank 
heavily of red wine, which flushed his massive face and 
made the three sword cuts livid as though they were recent 
wounds. He spoke mostly of the war and of his glorious 
troops, as though victory had been theirs to the end. The 
retreat had been according to plan. The armistice was 
forced upon them by the complete breakdown of the home 
front, due to the cowardice of politicians and the Boil- 
shevism of the civilians. The morale of the nation would 
have to be strengthened again by a relentless struggle 


162 Little Novels of Nowadays 


against all revolutionary and destructive influences which 
had eaten into the strong old German spirit. At all costs, 
and by all means, traitor politicians like Mulheim and others 
would have to be destroyed like rats by those who were 
loyal to the old tradition. 

“Thank God,” said the pastor of Arnsberg, “we still have 
lion-hearted defenders of the Fatherland, inspired by the 
same devotion as yourself, dear and honoured general!” 

“Some of us are getting old,” said Heinrich von Arnsberg. 
“These last days of shame have weighed heavily upon those 
of us who have borne the brunt of the war. The future 
of Germany is in the hands of youth.” 

“Our heroic youth is undefeated in spirit,” said the pastor. 
There were murmurs of agreement and emotion from the 
old ladies, and the beautiful Countess of Arnheim clinked 
glasses with one of the young staff officers and said, “Youth 
is loyal.” The general gulped down another glass of red 
wine. 

“Gladly have I sacrificed three of my sons on the altar 
of the Fatherland,” he said solemnly. “I have two others 
whom I consecrate to that service and sacrifice. As the 
others fought against the enemies from without—the ever- 
to-be-damned English and French—so now Felix, here, 
must fight against the enemies from within.” He rose in 
his chair, and, holding up his wineglass as though he would 
crush it in his great paw, stared over to the boy at the end 
of the table. 

“My son, here before old comrades and friends who re- 
member with me the glory of German victories, here before 
young men who have had the honour to serve with me in 
the war, and here under the portraits of our beloved Em- 
perors who were sure of the loyalty of the House of Arns- 
berg, which is your inheritance, I dedicate you to the service 
of Kaiser and Fatherland. Hate their enemies. Pledge 
yourself to destroy those who have betrayed them—our 
rascally revolutionaries—strengthen yourself to avenge your 
brothers when the day of vengeance comes. Be glad to die 
if by giving up your life you can serve in any way our 
Imperial Family and our good old German pride. Be 


The Castle of Arnsberg 163 


strong. Be brave. Be ruthless for the might and right of 
the German Empire. May the blessing of God be with 
you in fulfilment of that last pledge. May the curse of 
God follow you if you weaken in this cause.” 

This speecn, delivered in a strong, guttural voice, which 
trembled with a violence of emotion, aroused the enthu- 
siasm, and, indeed, the passion of the company. All eyes 
were turned upon young Felix von Arnsberg. 

At the first mention of his name a deep wave of colour 
mounted to the boy’s forehead and then ebbed away, leav- 
ing him very pale. Towards the end of the speech, with 
its solemn dedication, he rose, and then, at the very end, 
bowed to his father and sat down again without a word. 

There were shouts of “Hoch! Hoch!’ ‘The little old 
pastor of Arnsberg, with tears in his eyes, raised both his 
hands in a blessing above the boy’s head. The young staff 
officers smiled at Felix and lifted their glasses to him. 

According to Anna Rippmann, the little governess, it was 
a few moments after that, when the conversation was gen- 
eral again, that Felix raised his eyes from their contempla- 
tion of the table-cloth. They met Anna’s for a moment, 
and she thought she read in them an expression of revolt 
against the paternal dedication. An expression of revolt, 
yet belonging to a soul trapped and seeking a way of escape. 

That is how she described his look, though perhaps she 
put into that memory of his glance the knowledge which 
afterwards came to her of his character and views. 

It was at least a month after this banquet that Felix broke 
the silence that had existed—except for that “Guten 
Morgen” and “Guten Abend’—between himself and Anna 
Rippmann. The direct cause of a secret and dangerous 
intimacy that followed was the influence upon both these 
young people of a man named Hans Eupen, who came daily 
to the Castle of Arnsberg tc give music lessons to little 
Rupprecht and Elsa, and violin lessons to Felix, who was 
remarkably proficient already and played with an emotion 
which Anna found almost too stirring. 

Hans Eupen had conducted the orchestra at the Court 
Theatre of Munich for some years before the war, and was 


164 Little Novels of Nowadays 


a composer of reputation and promise. In the war he lost 
a leg, and his nerves were so shattered that he was unable 
to write a line of original music or to hold a baton in public, 
so that he was reduced to the wretched task of teaching as © 
a means of livelihood. 

A tall, dark-eyed, melancholy-looking man, his patience 
was severely strained by the childish mistakes of Rupprecht 
and Elsa, who hated their music lessons, and it was out of 
sheer pity for his agony that Anna—always present during 
these exercises—engaged him in conversation. At first he 
was reserved and taciturn, but little by little he revealed a 
passion that consumed him as though by fire. It was a pas- 
sionate hatred of war and of the materialism and militarism 
in all classes of German life, as well as in other nations, 
which had made the last war inevitable, and would, unless 
killed by a new faith and a new philosophy in Europe, 
make the peace that had followed only a breathing time 
before another monstrous and inevitable conflict. 

“We must change the mind of youth,” he said. “Unless 
we stamp out the old traditions of race hatred, military 
pride and national egotism, European civilisation will perish. 
All depends upon the teaching of children like that. You 
have a great responsibility, Miss Rippmann!” 

He glanced at Rupprecht and Elsa, perched on their 
piano stools and struggling with a duet. 

It seems strange, perhaps, that he should have talked like 
that to a little governess, but by some instinct he under- 
stood that Anna Rippmann—perhaps because of her Eng- 
lish mother—did not hold the narrow views of these Ger- 
man aristocrats whose children he instructed in the rudi- 
ments of music. Day after day, in low voices, they talked 
of these things, and Anna heard much of the agony of the 
things this man had suffered and seen in war, and of his 
burning hope that some leader would arise in Germany— 
he spoke often of Doctor Miilheim—to make the republic 
safe for.German democracy against all monarchist reaction 
and hopes of military vengeance, and to educate the younger 
men and women of Germany in ideals of peace based upon 
the brotherhood of nations. 


The Castle of Arnsberg 165 


Dangerous talk in the Castle of Arnsberg! It was inter- 
rupted by the “One—two—three—four!” with which Hans 
Eupen beat time now and then to the children, or by his 
cries of anguish when they made a jumble of notes. Then 
he would thrust back the lock of hair which fell over his 
forehead, take up his music case and leave the room to go 
up to the high chamber where Felix waited for him. 

Never once, at this time, did he speak of Felix to Anna. 
He was cautious in the Castle of Arnsberg, as far as that 
went; but by the length of time he stayed upstairs, and by 
a kind of excitement in the eyes of Felix after his music 
lessons, Anna was certain that Hans Eupen was trying to 
convert this young man to his own faith. She held her 
breath at the thought, remembering that dedication to hate 
and vengeance, and that curse of God proclaimed by Gen- 
eral von Arnsberg should this son of his weaken in his 
loyalty to the old tradition of his house. 

It was Felix himself who revealed the secret of his con- 
versations with the music master. He came into the chil- 
dren’s room one day on the pretext of playing a game with 
little Rupprecht, who was fighting a battle with tin soldiers 
on the floor, and annihilating imaginary legions of ver- 
dammte Franzosen. 

“Hans Eupen would hate to see a game like this,”: said 
Felix in a shy, self-conscious way. 

“It’s not a good game,” said Anna, “but Rupprecht likes 
it best of all.” 

“It’s my father’s blood in him,” replied Felix. “Perhaps 
our long ancestry of soldiers, who thought of life only in 
terms of war. An inherited instinct.” 

“Ts it yours?” asked Anna. 

“T’m a heretic to the old faith of blood and iron. I believe 
humanity ought to move on to something higher than tribal 
hatreds. Otherwise Europe will go down with her civilisa- 
tion.” | 

“That’s what Hans Eupen says.” 

“Yes. It is Hans Eupen who has converted me, heart 
and soul, to a democratic philosophy. I stand against all 
that my father is and believes. Every word he speaks fills 


166 Little Novels of Nowadays 


me with revolt. Sometimes I even hate the sight of his 
sword-slashed face, because it is typical of German bru- 
tality. I detest the old men who surround him and flatter 
him. Above all I abhor the intrigues of the young staff 
officers who come here day after day, pretending that they 
won the war; casting the shame of defeat on the poor 
devils of civilians who starved and delivered up their sons 
for sacrifice; and plotting against the liberal-minded men 
who try to strengthen the new republic.” 

He spoke with astonishing bitterness, and his face was 
flushed by hurtful emotion. 

“Hush!” said Anna. “It is dangerous to speak like that, 
even before the children.” 

“Don’t you agree with what I say?” he asked. “Hans 
Eupen tells me you hold the same opinions. That is why 
I want to talk to you.” 

After that breaking of the ice, which had frozen all pre- 
vious intercourse between them, Felix sought out the little 
governess whenever he could do so without observation 
from the servants, or his father and mother, or the guests, 
mostly officers of high military caste, who came over con- 
stantly from Munich. 

They made a habit of meeting after Abendessen in a little 
summerhouse at the end of the castle grounds. It over- 
looked the brown old roofs of the tower of Arnsberg, with 
a glimpse of the river, which curved like a Turkish sword 
between the leafy gardens and flat meadows. Very sweetly 
at this hour the sound of the church bells, ringing for 
evensong, came up to them from the valley, and often the 
western sky was a wonder of red and gold as the sun went 
down behind the hills. 

Here the son of Heinrich von Arnsberg and the little gov- 
erness, who was so insignificant a member of his household, 
spoke together and of many great and serious subjects, like 
the meaning of life, and the mystery of God, and the future 
of civilisation, and the chances of world peace, and the 
inevitable ruin of Germany. Anna was impressed by the 
nobility of this boy’s mind, his sensitive temperament and 
love of beauty ; but she was aware—even in her adoration— 


The Castle of Arnsberg 167 


of.a strain of weakness in him. He hated his father’s 
ideas, but was afraid of him. He confessed his own 
cowardice and his utter inability to stand up to the old 
man and challenge his opinions, his traditions, or his po- 
litical creed. 

“I’m a moral liar,” he said. “My father thinks I’m loyal 
to his hatreds and hopes of vengeance, when I am utterly 
disloyal. He takes my silence for agreement and endorse- 
ment. But when he roars out his denunciations of Doctor 
Mulheim and all the men who stand for a liberal and peace- 
ful Germany I haven’t the spirit to challenge him. He 
leaves me dazed and deafened by his noise and fury. Also, 
strange as it may seem, I hate to hurt him. He puts a spell 
on me.” 

The spell was broken, and the challenge made between 
father and son, before many weeks had passed. But before 
then Felix and Anna had changed the subject of their con- 
versation. It was no longer abstract politics, but the mys- 
tery and wonder of personal love which engrossed them. 
Inevitable, perhaps, that a boy like that, imaginative, un- 
happy because of a wide gulf between himself and his 
parents in all views of life, and intensely sentimental, should 
find a passionate solace in the companionship and under- 
standing of a pretty girl like Anna Rippmann. Equally in- 
evitable, according to the laws of human nature, that his 
romantic expression of love should meet with a ready 
response. 

They took tremendous risks of discovery by meeting so 
often, clasping hands in shady nooks, stealing away to un- 
inhabited rooms of the old Schloss, embracing each other 
outside the very doors that divided them from the general 
and his wife. Often they were within a hair’s breadth of 
being discovered. 

Once, when Felix had his arms about Anna and her head 
was upon his shoulder, in a room known as the armoury, 
in a high turret, where old weapons rusted on the walls 
and moths devoured the fur of stuffed animals, they were 
startled by a heavy footstep on the creaking floor outside. 
A loud, panting breath and a deep husky cough warned 


168 Little Novels of Nowadays 


them that Heinrich von Arnsberg himself was within a yard 
of them. It was dusk, and the room was almost in dark- 
ness except for a faint twilight creeping through the barred 
windows. They drew back breathlessly into the far corner 
of the room, behind a mangy old bear shot by the general 
in his youth. The old man strode into the room and struck 
a match. He stood so close to Felix and Anna that they 
gave themselves up for lost. Anna could feel the rigidity 
of Felix as he stood there still clasping her. A sudden 
breath of air blew the match out, and the general cursed 
loudly, fumbled for another match, failed to find it, and 
then stumbled out of the room again and passed down the 
corridor. 

At another time it was the Baroness von Arnsberg who 
nearly caught them. That was outside Anna’s room late at 
night. Felix was whispering to her and begging for another 
kiss. Suddenly the clear, rather shrill voice of the boy’s 
mother called at the head of the stairs, “Fraulein!” 

Anna slipped in front of Felix, holding her door open 
to hide him. 

“Gnddige Frau?” 

It seemed that little Elsa had been walking in her sleep 
and had gone into her mother’s room. Now she was awake 
and frightened and calling for Anna. By another footstep 
the lady would have found her son behind the Frdulein’s 
door. 

“Our love is very dangerous,” said Anna more than once. 
“It can lead to nothing but disgrace and tragedy.” 

The boy said that this love was his only happiness. Yet 
he admitted that it was impossible for him to tell his par- 
ents. The general would kick him out, and he had no 
money beyond a meagre allowance. He would have to earn 
his livelihood, enough for marriage. Perhaps he could get 
a job in Berlin. Hans Eupen would introduce him to 
Doctor Mtlheim, who owned the only newspaper which told 
the truth and worked for peace. It was possible he might 
be engaged as a writer. 

“If you joined Doctor Mulheim,” said Anna, “your father 


The Castle of Arnsberg 169 


would never forgive you. He hates him as the arch enemy 
of Germany.” 

“He is the noblest man we have,” said Felix, “and Hans 
Eupen worships him as the leader of the new democracy.” 

Because Hans Eupen, the lame music master, worshipped 
this Doctor Mulheim, it was enough for Felix to indulge 
in hero worship. For the boy listened to the crippled man 
as to one divinely inspired; and, indeed, from all I hear, 
this strange, melancholy and passionate soul had a fine and 
spiritual outlook, rare, perhaps, in Germany at that time— 
rare everywhere, and at all times. 

His friendship with Doctor Miulheim, great industrialist, 
newspaper proprietor and leader of the moderate democratic 
group in the Reichstag, was, strangely enough, the direct 
cause of the explosion that happened in the Castle of Arns- 
berg, breaking, among other things more massive, the heart 
of Anna Rippmann, the little governess. For there is no 
doubt that it was by the invitation of Hans Eupen that 
Doctor Mulheim was persuaded to come to the town of 
Arnsberg and address a meeting of miners and ex-soldiers 
pledged to pacifist principles and democratic ideals. Their 
leader was Franz Dachs, that tall burly fellow who had 
been knocked down on the bridge below the Schloss by the 
home-coming general, and it is certain now that Hans Eupen 
was in close correspondence with him, and, as it were, his 
intellectual guide. 

This visit of Doctor Mtlheim to Arnsberg, and, above all, 
the report of his'speech, which was written by Hans Eupen 
for the local press, created a sensation which ended, as all 
the world knows, in crime and tragedy. The speech was 
certainly rash and ill-advised. Doctor Miilheim was not 
content with proclaiming his faith in democratic principles, 
and with denouncing the intrigues and reactionary policy 
of German monarchists and militarists, but he made a direct 
and personal attack upon General von Arnsberg as a type 
of all that was evil in the militarist caste. 

“Here, above this little town,” he said, “with its popula- 
tion of humble men who toil for poor wages in the mines, 


170 _ Little Novels of Nowadays 


the victims of war, and those who pay the costs of defeat, 
there frowns down one of those old German castles which 
still typify the arrogant pride of brute force. In their time 
they were necessary and useful; in that time when the world 
was a conflict between primitive opposing forces, and before 
the dawn of civilised ideas leading to the right of humble 
folk who desire to work in peace without quarrel with their 
fellow men. Now these old stones and the old men who 
dwell within them are anachronisms. They belong to the 
past. They have no place in the present. They are doomed 
by the future. Heinrich von Arnsberg, one of those gen- 
erals who made the war and lost it, gathers round him the 
old caste, plots with them against the new republic, rages 
against the march of human progress, and by appealing to 
old sentiment—by which we, as a people, are too spellbound 
—endeavours to inflame young aristocrats with the spirit of 
his senseless hate and hopes of vengeance. It is he and his 
class who have brought Germany to ruin, massacred her 
youth and made us pariahs among the peoples of the world. 
The working youth of Germany must overwhelm them by 
the passion of their purpose for peace.” 

The mere fact that Mulheim was in Arnsberg was a cause 
of violent anger to the general. At dinner that night, before 
the fatal speech was made, he drank heavily, and after the 
ladies had left the table he broke out into noisy tirades 
against a man whom he declared to be a traitor and a pig- 
dog. 

To two young officers who were dining with him he 
deplored the departure of the old duelling days, which would 
have enabled him to kill the fellow and so rid his country 
of a pest. 

“If I were twenty years younger,” he said, bringing his 
fist down with a crash on the oak table, “I would kill him like 
anrates 

“If he were twenty years younger,” said one of the officers 
—Franz von Westhof—“I should have great pleasure in 
slitting his throat for you, general. Unfortunately, he has 
white hair and cannot defend hiniself.” 

“Old age is no excuse for treason,” said another young 


The Castle of Arnsberg 171 


man—Friedrich von Rothwasser. ‘I agree with the general. 
Rats should be killed, old or young.” 

Sinister words, in view of what happened the following 
night, when Doctor Mulheim’s speech had been reported in 
the local press. Felix was in his father’s library, after din- 
ner, when the evening paper was brought in by one of the 
servants, who held it as though it might bite him. Franz 
von Westhof and Friedrich von Rothwasser, who were stay- 
ing in the castle, were sitting back in the deep leather chairs, 
smoking cigars and discussing the Treaty of Versailles with 
complete unanimity regarding its iniquity. Felix was sitting 
with his eyes closed thinking of Anna and wondering how 
soon he could steal away to her. Suddenly there was a 
strange, terrible and apoplectic noise from his father’s chair. 
The old man seemed to be suffocating in a storm of rage. 
When it abated he delivered a series of terrific oaths, kicked 
a footstool to the end of the room, flung his glass of brandy 
into the great fireplace and raged up and down, calling upon 
ten thousand devils and other agencies of an infernal char- 
acter. 

The two young officers sprang to their feet at the first 
outbreak of his violent demonstration and became aware of 
the cause of it when they picked up the paper, which the 
general had dropped on the tiger-skin rug, and read Doctor 
Mulheim’s oration. 

“Undoubtedly it is an outrage,” said Freidrich von Roth- 
wasser when he had read the offending print. 

“It is a gross insult, not only to General von Arnsberg, but 
to all of us,” said Franz von Westhof. 

The general again called upon heaven and hell to avenge 
him against such infamy. 

It was Franz von Westhof, according to what Felix told 
Anna, who brought silence into the room by an action which 
startled this company of men. 

Very slowly and deliberately he went to the general’s 
desk, took a sheet of notepaper and tore it into three strips 
of unequal length, which he then held so that only the ends 
appeared in his hand. 

“There are three of us here to avenge the general and rid 


172 Little Novels of Nowadays 


Germany of a traitor,” he said in his quiet, aristocratic 
voice. ‘Whoever draws the short piece will kill this ruffian 
Miilheim. If I am left with the short piece, it is, of course, 
my privilege.” 

He held out his hand to Friedrich von Rothwasten and 
said, “Draw, my dear friend!”. 

The young officer said “Bestimmt!’’—“Agreed !”—and 
drew one of the bits of paper. 

Felix, conscious of intense pallor and a sensation of sick- 
ness, drew another. Franz von Westhof held the last in his 
hand and measured it against the two others. 

He bowed slightly to Felix and smiled. 

“You have the honour, Felix. It is right that a son should 
avenge his father.” 

Heinrich von Arnsberg had watched this pantomime with 
a flushed face and heavy shadows under his puffed eyes. He 
gave a gruff, gurgling laugh. 

“I do not understand what you young men are playing at 
—Goitt im Himmel |!—but I do not interfere. If there is one 
scoundrel less in Germany I shall rejoice. If my son is a 
brave man, true to his family name and his love of the 
Fatherland, I shall be proud of him.” He put his great hand 
on his son’s shoulder and laughed again. “Good hunting, 
my son!” 

Felix fell back a little, and then straightened himself up 
and faced his father. He knew that he must tell the truth 
that was in him or be forever a false and craven thing. A 
slight sweat broke out on his forehead and his pallor was 
extreme, but his eyes were burning. 

“T am not a murderer,” he said huskily. “Even if I had 
inherited instincts of that kind, Doctor Mulheim is the last 
man on God’s earth I would choose for my killing. He spoke 
hard words against the family of Arnsberg, and of you, 
father, but can you wonder at it? Is it not true what he 
said? Ever since the armistice you have put the blame of 
defeat on the poor people who suffered its worst agonies, © 
and now pay, in their bodies and souls, for the ruin into 
which they were led. For months this house has been the 
meeting place of old men—yes, and young men too’—he 


The Castle of Arnsberg 173 


glanced savagely at Friedrich von Rothwasser and Westhof 
—‘“who have no other policy than that of plotting against 
the republic, bringing back the monarchy, and preparing by 
every kind of villainy a new war, in which they may have a 
gambler’s chance of victory. Doctor Mulheim calls to 
German youth to have done with military pride and the 
philosophy of bryte force. He holds up new and nobler 
ideals for the German race, in which I, for one, believe. I 
regret his personal attack on you, sir, but I understand his 
bitterness. The proof of all he said is in this slip of paper, 
which is a warrant for murder. Not by my hand!” 

He twisted his slip of paper into a pellet and flicked it into 
the fire of logs burning in the great hearth. 

For the second time that night General von Arnsberg made 
strange, ugly and inarticulate noises in his throat. He 
breathed loudly, and the little veins on his face swelled, and 
the old sword cuts were vivid. 

For some time he seemed unable to speak, and a painful 
silence was broken only by a light, mocking laugh from 
Friedrich von Rothwasser. Then the old man uttered a 
frightful oath, followed by an outburst of incoherent abuse 
of his son who allied himself with swine—so he spoke— 
against his own father and his own caste. Traitor, coward, 
liar, Bolshevik, were only a few of the names he hurled at 
Felix. There were times when he moved forward, in a 
hunched, bearlike way, with clenched fists, as though he 
would smash the boy with sledge-hammer blows, but he did 
not strike him. 

The end of this scene was when he pulled a silken rope 
hanging at the chimneyside and set a bell loudly jangling. 
Several menservants came rushing in, believing that some 
one had been killed or that a fire had broken out. They were 
all men who had served the general in his headquarters staff 
during the war. 

He shouted to them in a furious voice, “Take that young 
Schweinehund away! Lock him up in the armoury. Put a 
guard on the door, and keep him a close prisoner.” 

They were astounded and hesitated to close round Felix, 
who had always been very civil to them. But he walked 


174 Little Novels of Nowadays 


towards them with a white smile and said, “I am in your 
hands.” 

He went with them up to the armoury, where he had 
embraced Anna on that night when they had nearly been 
discovered. With many apologies and expressions of dis- 
may and regret the servants shut him in and locked the 
door. 

He was there not longer than an hour, sitting on a wooden 
box beside the mangy old bear that his father had shot, with 
his head in his hands, in the darkness which was hardly 
brightened by a candle which one of the servants had placed 
on the table. 

Once the room was lit up by the headlights of a motor car 
which drove away from the castle. 

After that hour Felix blew out the candle and went to the 
casement window. The servants had not troubled to lock it, 
and it was an easy thing for his slim figure to get through 
and grasp the twisted ivy on the wall outside, with his foot 
on the drip stone. By means of a leaden drain pipe he 
climbed down the wall and jumped lightly to the ground. 

Then he walked round to the tower where Anna Rippmann 
had her room. Her window was black. She was in bed and 
asleep. But he played the trick which millions of lovers 
have done throughout the centuries. A small pebble, break- 
ing her windowpane, awakened her. A light shone through 
the leaded panes. She had lit a candle. 

In her white nightgown she came to the window and called 
out “Who is there?” 

He answered softly, “It is I—Felix.” 

Holding to the ivy, and raising himself a little from the 
ground, he whispered to her something of what had hap- 
pened—the murder plot against Doctor Mulheim, his refusal 
and revelation, his father’s fury, his imprisonment in the 
armoury, his escape. | 

“Es ist schrecklich!” said Anna. “It is terrible! What 
can you do, dear Felix ?” 

He told her that he was going to Hans Eupen’s house and 
after that, perhaps, to Berlin. 


The Castle of Arnsberg 175 


“Think of me always!” said Anna, weeping in her senti- 
mental way as she confessed. 

“I leave my heart with you,” he answered, and for a little 
while they spoke as lovers do at such a time, agonising over 
the parting, protracting it, swearing eternal things. It was 
the girl, as always, who bade him go at last. They were too 
far away to kiss. He couldn’t even touch her hands. They 
blew kisses to each other on their finger tips like children, 
and then, unwilling, deeply miserable, Felix von Arnsberg 
said “Auf Wiedersehen,”’ and disappeared into the darkness 
of the pathway between high bushes which led to a side gate, 
and so out of the castle grounds. 

Hans Eupen’s house was in the Friedrich Wilhelmstrasse, 
at the southern end of the town of Arnsberg. There were 
lights in the windows when Felix approached, and he found 
a crowd of people round the open doorway vastly excited. 
Felix pushed his way through them and in the small, square- 
built hall, found Hans Eupen and Dr. Ernest Hardmuth, of 
Arnsberg, bending over a body which lay there on the floor. 
It was the dead body of Doctor Mulheim, who had been shot 
by two men as he was entering Hans Eupen’s house on his 
way from a meeting of miners in the Arbeitsverein. The 
murderers had driven away in a motor car with powerful 
headlights. 

Hans Eupen was so nerve-shattered by the sudden tragedy 
that he seemed dazed and horror-stricken, and for several 
minutes failed to recognise Felix. Over and over again he 
groaned out, “My poor and noble friend!” The lock of 
hair on his forehead fell over his eyes and he did not take the 
trouble to thrust it back. Afterwards, when he had collected 
his wits a little, and when the body of Doctor Mulheim was 
taken away by the police, he led Felix into his sitting room 
and there broke out into a passion of rage against the un- 
known murderers who had done to death the noblest man, he 
said, in Germany. 

Felix dared not tell him the whole truth about the scene in 
his father’s library. Indeed, he said nothing at all about the 
slips of paper or the direct cause of the quarrel that had 


176 Little Novels of Nowadays 


happened with his father, but spoke only of having chal- 
lenged the old man’s political views in a way that had led 
to his arrest and escape. 

So he told Anna at their next meeting, which happened 
that afternoon when she came down to Hans Eupen’s house 
for half an hour, having left the children in charge of the 
Miédchen. It was while she was alone with Felix, clasping 
his hand and talking anxiously of the future, that Hans 
Eupen learned, beyond all doubt, the names of the men who 
had murdered his dearest friend. One of those menservants 
who had escorted Felix to the armoury had identified the 
description of the car in which the murderers had escaped 
with the one belonging to Count Friedrich von Rothwasser, 
while Franz von Westhof and this officer had left the Schloss 
at twenty minutes past eleven on the preceding evening and 
had returned at twenty minutes before midnight. The serv- 
ant brought the information to Hans Eupen under pledge 
of secrecy and confessed his hatred of the general, who 
would kick him to death did he know of this betrayal. 

Like a demented man, Hans Eupen broke into the room 
where Felix sat with Anna and blurted out this news with a 
violence of language that was unusual with him. 

“Never again do I set foot in that house of assassins!” he 
said. “TI shall curse myself forever for having taken money 
from those who planned my poor friend’s death. By God’s 
help I will bring his murderers to justice. 

“Germany will not be safe for democracy until every stone 
in these castles of brutality is hurled to the ground!” 

For a time he raged even against Felix because he bore the 
name of Arnsberg. He would have turned him out of his 
house, but the boy’s distress, and Anna’s pleadings, and his 
real affection for the lad, who had no sympathy with his own 
caste, softened him, so that he reproached himself for sense- 
less words and begged Felix to pardon him. _ 

The rest of this story, and the end of it, must be told from 
what Anna Rippmann saw and heard on the following eve- 
ning in the Schloss, to which she had returned after another 
farewell with Felix, who had arranged to stay with Hans 
Eupen that night. 


The Castle of Arnsberg 177 


At dinner the general sat moody and silent, and the Baron- 
ess von Arnsberg had certainly been weeping because of 
the departure of Felix, whom, in her cold, austere way, she 
loved. It is improbable, I think, that her husband had re- 
vealed the full story of that scene in which Felix had 
affronted him, or any word of its reference to Doctor Mul- 
heim. Both Franz von Westhof and Friedrich von Roth- 
wasser were gay and smiling. Anna Rippmann, watching 
them with a kind of horrified fascination, marvelled at their 
ease of mind after such a crime. They chatted amiably, 
cracked nuts when dessert was served, drank their wine with 
courteous salutations to their host. 

It was just then, when the fruit had been placed on the 
table, that a strange noise came through the open windows. 
It was rather like a heavy sea breaking on distant rocks or 
a howling wind down a ravine. 

It was Friedrich von Rothwasser who first called atten- 
tion to this noise. 

“A storm rising?” he asked lightly, and then with a 
slight change of tone, after listening intently: “Or vulgar 
clamour at the gates?” 

“Certainly the noise of a mob,” said Franz von Westhof. 

The general rose and went to the window and stood listen- 
ing. 

“Those damned Bolshevik miners,’ he said presently. 
“They are trying to smash down the outer gate. Ten thou- 
sand devils!” 

Franz von Westhof looked at his friend across the table. 
A slightly heightened colour seemed to reveal some sudden 
emotion, but he laughed lightly. 

“They seem annoyed,” he said. “They are certainly using 
abominable language, as usual!” 

Friedrich von Rothwasser rose from the table. 

“Perhaps we had better prepare for a little trouble,” he 
suggested. “Do you permit me to get my revolver, general ? 
And yours? They may be needed.” 

He glanced in a smiling, courteous way at the Baroness 
von Arnsberg, and his eyes travelled round for a moment to 
Anna Rippmann. 


39 


178 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“The ladies, perhaps, should retire to the farther rooms— 
in the Siegfried tower. It would be safer in case of— 
unpleasant disturbance.” | 

“Do you mean the people are attacking us?’ asked 
the Baroness von Arnsberg. “I cannot think they would 
dare a 

She breathed sharply and put her hand to her heart. 

In another moment there was no doubt that ugly things 
might happen and were happening. 

A great crash sounded down the avenue leading to the 
outer gate by the stone bridge. It was followed by an 
uproar in which separate voices, shouting fiercely, could be 
clearly heard. Then came the sound of tramping feet, the 
noise of an excited mob coming closer. Ruddy points of 
light glowed through the heavy foliage which surrounded 
the broad walk round the Schloss. 

“Torches,” said Franz von Westhof. 

A groom hurried into the dining room without ceremony. 
He was panting and wild-eyed. 

“They are asking for the Count von Westhof and the 
Baron von Rothwasser,” he stammered. 

“Unless they are delivered up, they threaten to burn the 
Schloss. They are mad with rage.” 

“You are mad with cowardice!” said the general harshly. 
“Call the other servants and tell them to bring their 
arms. Send the Feldwebel to me. He keeps his 
Hea 

He turned to his wife and told her to go to the Siegfried 
tower and not to be afraid. 

“T should be more afraid alone in the Siegfried tower,” 
said the lady. “I beg of you to let me stay with you.” 

“As you will,” said the general. “There is no danger. I 
will teach these pig-dogs a lesson.” 

Anna Rippmann was certainly afraid. Telling the story 
afterwards, she confessed that terror took all the strength 
from her limbs. She sank into a chair. She remembers that 
she felt very cold and that by some queer freak of mind she 
kept repeating to herself a nursery rhyme in English which 
she had taught the children. She could not remember the 


The Castle of Arnsberg 179 


last line. Try as she would she couldn’t remember those 
last foolish words: 

“When the pie was opened, the birds began to sin y 

How did it go then? 

It was, of course, one of the symptoms of a fear so strong 
that it numbs the brain. 

Many details of what happened made no kind of impres- 
sion on her mind. Vaguely she remembers a number of men- 
servants assembling with arms and stuffing up the windows 
with cushions. Afterwards they went out, under the gen- 
eral’s orders presumably, to other rooms in the Schloss. 
More clearly, as a vivid flash of light illumines darkness for 
a moment, she remembers the first shot that came into the 
room. It pierced a wooden shutter and shattered a gold- 
framed mirror on the other side of the room. 

Friedrich von Rothwasser and Franz von Westhof leaned 
up against the walls at an angle by the window frames and 
every now and then fired their revolvers. They were per- 
fectly calm. They seemed to be amused. 

The general sat for a few moments, she believes, in a 
heavy oak chair, with an automatic pistol which he fired 
carelessly through the window now and then. But he seems 
to have moved about afterwards, and was absent from the 
dining room for what seemed long periods of time. No 
doubt he was ordering the defence of the Schloss elsewhere. 
The Baroness von Arnsberg also disappeared. Anna Ripp- 
mann believes that she herself was entirely forgotten and 
unnoticed for a time, as she sat back helpless with fear in a 
corner of the room. She remembers the noise of great 
shouting which went on outside continually except when, for 
a moment now and then, sudden short silences followed a 
pistol shot from the room. 

A scrap of conversation between the two young men in 
the room came back to her mind, as people remember bits 
of a nightmare. 

“They will certainly break in,” said Friedrich von Roth- 
wasser. ““There are many of them.” 

“They won’t be kind to us,” said Franz von Westhof. He 
laughed in his rather girlish way. 


180 Little Novels of Nowadays 


Friedrich von Rothwasser spoke again: 

“Tt is that swinish young coward Felix who has given us 
away.” 

Another shot came into the room. It smashed, very 
neatly, a tall Dresden vase standing on a table close to the 
chair in which Anna Rippmann was crouching. At the same 
time, she believes, a hot, eye-smarting smoke began to filter 
into the room, and one of the young men uttered a sharp 
exclamation as a little red flame darted suddenly, like a 
tongue, through one of the window sashes. 

After that the girl seems to have fainted, for the next 
thing she remembers is lying on the damp grass of one of 
the lawns outside the Schloss, one wing of which was a blaz- 
ing fire. As she afterwards learned, she had been carried 
out by one of the servants, under orders from Friedrich von 
Rothwasser. He had stayed, retreating to another room, 
with his companion and the general. The baroness had 
escaped at the rear with her women-folk, from whom Anna 
Rippmann afterwards learned the details of their flight. It 
was only by the reiterated commands of the general that the 
poor lady had consented to leave the Schloss, and then in a 
fainting state, so that her women had almost to carry her. 

Anna, sitting upon the damp grass, found herself amidst 
a small group of men, among whom were Hans Eupen, the 
music master, Franz Dachs, the miners’ foreman, and Felix, 
her lover. Behind them, under the shelter of the trees, were 
many other men. Felix was staring towards the burning 
Schloss. 

Anna called to him twice, but he did not answer her. He 
spoke excitedly to Hans Eupen and Franz Dachs: 

“At least they should have a chance to surrender. I can- 
not stand here and see my father burned to death.” 

“It’s as good as being torn to bits,” said the foreman 
harshly. | 

“Are you all savages?” asked Felix in an agonised voice. 
“Ts this your democratic idealism ?” 

“We have no mercy for the murderers of Doctor Miil- 
heim,” said the man. “You be quiet, young man. We don’t 
like your family name.” 


\ 
: 


The Castle of Arnsberg 181 


Hans Eupen spoke hurriedly to the miners’ foreman, but 
Anna Rippmann could not hear his words. They seemed 
to have some influence, for after a conversation ending with 
a shrug of the shoulders, Franz Dachs gave a shout to some 
of his men, and a sharp order. 

They fell back on both sides and made an open way for 
Felix, who walked rapidly out of the shelter of the trees into 
the open pathway, which was lurid with the light from the 
great flames which consumed one wing of the Schloss. 
Anna called his name again, but it was lost in the roar of that 
devastating fire. She could see the boy’s figure clearly out- 
lined in the ruddy glare towards which he hurried. 

He turned a little to the left, towards the Siegfried tower, 
which was still beyond the reach of the flames, though show- 
ers of sparks were blowing this way, so that it was in immi- 
nent danger. Then he stood still and waved a white handker- 
chief and shouted some words. Anna Rippmann did not 
hear them, but there are others who say that in a loud voice 
he begged his father to come out of the burning building with 
his supporters. The men’s leaders promised them a safe- 
conduct if they would surrender. I doubt if he made such 
a long speech as that. Others say the boy shouted the two 
words, “Surrender!” and ‘‘Safe-conduct !” 

There was no surrender from General von Arnsberg, nor 
from two officers and five men who remained, dead or alive, 
within the burning Schloss. 

The figure of Felix von Arnsberg, tall and slight, with a 
red glare of light about him, suddenly fell, face forward, 
and lay huddled on the gravel path. 

A shout of rage rose from the men around Anna Ripp- 
mann, and Hans Eupen ran forward a few paces and then 
flung up his arms with a great cry of anguish. 

The townsfolk believe that it was the general who shot 
his son, for the old man’s body was nearest to the windows 
in the Siegfried tower when they explored its charred ruin 
after the fire had burned out. Franz von Westhof had been 
killed by a bullet, and Friedrich von Rothwasser, with a 
handkerchief tied round his mouth and nose, had been 
crushed by a falling beam. 


182 Little Novels of Nowadays 


The Schloss von Arnsberg is a blackened ruin above the 
little stone bridge and the winding river. 

Doctor Mtlheim’s death was avenged. German democrats 
scored up a victory against the military caste and the hated 
Right. But Anna Rippmann, an insignificant little governess, 
who told this story to my sister, still weeps for a boy who 
stood between the two extremes. 


VII: THE HOUSE WITH THE SPARE 
BEDROOMS 


OHN LONGHURST had finished breakfast alone—a 

little melancholy man in a large, cheerful room looking 
out to a sunlit garden. He had also read the leading articles 
in The Times—one of them dealt with the painful and 
unsolved problem of “What to Do with Our Sons’”—before 
any other member of the household condescended to join 
him. 

It usually happened like that when John took a day’s 
leave from his government office and so could study the 
morning habits of his family and friends. 

This time it was his brother-in-law, William—commonly 
known as Uncle Will—who was the first to appear. He was 
still in his dressing gown and pyjamas, though by a glance 
at the clock John saw that it was a quarter to ten. 

As usual, Uncle Will was in a cheerful and healthy mood. 
His big, jovial, hairless face showed no sign of life’s wear 
and tear except that the skin beneath his eyes was a trifle 
puffed. He came into the room whistling a bit of ragtime, 
said “Morning, John!” and then served himself to a large 
plateful of sausages and bacon with an appetite unaffected 
by the undoubted fact that he had gone to bed in a state of 
hilarious intoxication at two in the morning. Undoubted, 
that is, by John Longhurst, who, lying awake and utterly 
unable to sleep because of anxious thoughts, had heard him 
singing and laughing down the corridor. 

Cyril—John’s son—had been with him, laughing too, until 
both were close to the bedroom door. Then the boy had 
said, “Hush, nunky, don’t wake up the governor!” 

After that there had been an explosive laugh, half sup- 
pressed, and the noise of two figures slinking past the door 

183 


184 Little Novels of Nowadays 


until they reached the other end of the corridor, when there 
was more buffoonery, a scuffle, and at last silence. 

Probably Cyril had been drinking too. Regardless of his 
young wife, who had gone to bed hours before, and of his 
father’s pleading request that they should turn out the lights 
before midnight, he had sat up listening to his uncle’s yarns 
—dangerously Rabelaisian for the most part—with inter- 
mittent sallies on the piano, noisy choruses, a violin solo by 
Edward Jermyn, to Uncle Will’s accompaniment, then more 
talk, passionate arguments, gusts of laughter, horseplay, an 
overturned chair, a vase smashed, a scrimmage in the hall, 
a drunken and highly comical oration by Uncle Will to the 
suit of armour on the first landing, and that scene in the 
corridor. | 

John Longhurst had no need of imagination to conjure 
up what had happened. He was perfectly familiar with the 
progressive hilarity of those evenings in the billiard room. 
He could quite understand the fascination they held for his 
son, Cyril. He remembered the time, six months ago, when 
he, too, had laughed as heartily at Uncle Will’s comic genius, 
and listened with breathless interest to his brother-in-law’s 
reminiscences of the South African War, gold digging in 
Johannesburg, farming in Alberta, big-game hunting in the 
Rockies, saloon keeping in New York. 

He had not been in the least grudging of hospitality to his 
wife’s brother. He had extended an indefinite invitation to 
him to stay at Longhurst Hall until he decided to return to 
Canada as soon as he could get a good position out there. 

Certainly, as John had admitted to his wife, it would be a 
churlish thing to deny board and lodging to a relative who 
had served the old mother country in two wars—the South 
African when he was a boy of twenty, and the Great War 
fifteen years after—and who now for a little while was at a 
loose end. Common decency demanded that much of John, 
who had had the luck to survive the years of death between 
1914 and 1919, and who had inherited an old country house 
from a distant cousin who had not survived. 

“It’s providential,” Mrs. Longhurst had said. “The dear 


\ 


The House with the Spare Bedrooms 185 


old house comes to us just at this time, when we have to do 
what we can for our flesh and blood.” 

“For those who have served England,” John had answered 
with emotion. 

“Thank God, darling,” his wife had said at another time, 
“we shan’t be selfish in our new possession, great as the joy 
of it is to us.” 

Undoubtedly it had been a joy to move from the stucco- 
fronted villa in the shabby-genteel end of London to this 
little old manor house in Sussex, with its ten acres of gar- 
dens, its stables and outhouses, orchards and mill stream. 

After the war it was like heaven’s peace to stroll hand in 
hand with a loving wife between the clipped hedges and over 
the velvet lawns of this old English homestead, to watch the, 
peaches ripening on the high walls that closed it in, and to 
sit in the window seats of panelled rooms under oak beams 
that had sheltered the old stock of the Longhurst family for 
three centuries. It was not a great mansion—nothing 
more than a little old manor house, badly in need of repair, 
and sadly neglected for many years—but it was big enough 
for John’s family, with rooms to spare. Expensive enough, 
too, because no fortune had come with it, and taxes were 
terrific in post-war England. 

“The upkeep will ruin us, my dear,” John had told his 
wife; but his heart had yearned for the place, and he had 
not contradicted his wife’s assurance that, with economy, 
they could manage. 

It was, of course, fortunate—providential, as Mrs. Long- 
hurst had said—that there should be room enough for Cyril 
and his young wife. The boy had been rash enough to make 
one of the many war marriages—without a bean beyond his 
army pay, as he had said. Well, his father could not blame 
him for that. In wartime, Youth—with grisly sacrifice 
ahead—had a right to grab at life while there was time, and 
Barbara was a nice girl, and adorably pretty. Not very 
staid and discreet yet, but affectionate and gay and lovable. 

“Of course you will live with us, my dear, until you can 
find some work,” said Mrs. Longhurst, when the boy was 


186 Little Novels of Nowadays 


demobilised and rushed home from Cologne to Barbara’s 
arms. “The old house is big enough.” 

“And absolutely topping,” said Cyril. “Barbara and I 
will revel in it until I get a job and set up my own place.” 

Mrs. Longhurst, loving mother as she was, hoped that 
would not be too soon. 

“Tr’ll take some months to look around and get used to 
civil life,” the boy had said. “Heaps of time!” 

So Cyril and Barbara had been given house room; and 
after that Uncle Will had arrived, with golf clubs, fishing 
rods, and a set of guns for a week or two, before getting 
back to Canada, where, undoubtedly, a job would turn up. 

That was nineteen months ago. 

Edward Jermyn became a guest a month after the arrival 
of Uncle Will. It was a real joy to John to give a temporary 
billet to this delightful, whimsical, talented creature. It was 
also a sacred duty, he thought. Jermyn had saved Long- 
hurst’s life at the risk of his own in the trenches, near Thiep- 
val, on the Somme, thereby gaining his D.S.O. 

No two men were more dissimilar, except in the one simi- 
larity of being hopelessly unfitted by training and tempera- 
ment for soldiering. They had found themselves together as 
temporary officers in the Sportsmen’s Battalion sent out to 
France with the Second Division. They had laughed to- 
gether at the jest of life which had flung men like themselves 
into this fantastic experience of filth and frightfulness— 
John Longhurst, a little, middle-aged civil servant in the 
Board of Education, who had worn a black coat and topper, 
weekdays and Sundays, for twenty years; and the Honour- 
able Edward Jermyn, of Eton and Magdalen, forty-two years 
of age, writer of sonnets, violinist, amateur painter, dandy 
and dilettante. What were they doing in this war, in ver- 
minous billets, in water-logged dugouts, in the shambles of 
the front-line trenches? | 

Jermyn’s unfailing good spirits, his charming manners in 
the worst possible situations, his highfaluting talk of art 
and beauty at a time when both were outraged by war’s 
brutality, his dandyism, even in the mud and slime of Flan- 
ders, and his debonair defiance of death even when he was 


The House with the Spare Bedrooms 187 


most frightened, as all men were, comforted John Long- 
hurst exceedingly, and taught him the gift and grace of 
laughter as the only safeguard against life’s abominations. 

Then there was that time when Jermyn had saved his 
life out beyond the barbed wire. 

After the war they met in Piccadilly, and Jermyn looked 
exquisite in a brand-new morning suit with white waist- 
coat and spats, and a silk hat at the old rakish angle. He 
greeted Longhurst effusively. 

“My dear old lad! How perfectly splendid to see you 
again! And a thousand congratulations! I hear you have 
inherited a fortune and an old mansion. I insist on being 
invited down for the week-end.” 

John explained hurriedly that, so far from inheriting a 
fortune, he was back again at the Board of Education on a 
meagre salary none too big for his present needs. As for his 
mansion, it was certainly old—and ramshackle—but it was 
costly to keep up, and almost beyond his means. Only sen- 
timent made him cling to it at a time when most people were 
selling their old houses and estates. But there it was, and it 
was for him to insist upon Jermyn coming down, not only 
for a week-end, but for several weeks at least. Nothing 
would give him greater joy than to share his billet with the 
man who had saved his life and been his best comrade in 
time of war. 

He spoke with emotion, being incurable as a sentimental- 
ist, and Jermyn was touched by the warmth of his invita- 
tion. 

“Immensely good of you, old John! IT’Il certainly come. 
The truth is that, although I look pretty prosperous at the 
moment—l’ve been paying a call on the Duchess of Ban- 
stead—I’m at a very loose end indeed, and living entirely on 
expectations.” 

He explained that he hoped to make a bit by writing poetry 
and painting pot-boilers. The idea of a week or two in 
John’s house appealed to him vastly. 

“A quiet country life, the beauty of Nature, the song of 
the birds—Lord! I’ll turn out sunsets by the yard and paint 
no end of giddy masterpieces! How about next week-end ?” 


188 Little Novels of Nowadays 


That was eighteen months ago. It was only during the 
last few weeks that John had decided to put a time limit to 
his hospitality. Indeed, it was only at the breakfast table 
this very morning, when he sat alone reading the leading 
articles in The Times, before Uncle Will came down with his 
hearty appetite, that John was conscious of a very desperate 
purpose within him to get rid of Uncle Will, to thrust out 
Edward Jermyn, and to insist that Cyril should get a job, 
earn his own living like a man, and keep his wife in an hon- 
est Way. 

Perhaps it was the way in which Uncle Will absorbed 
huge quantities of sausages and bacon after his intoxication 
on the preceding night which put the final spark to the long- 
smouldering revolt in the spirit of John Longhurst. It was 
like some trivial annoyance of manner—a way of sneezing, 
a careless use of the toothpick, an irritating disregard of 
small courtesies—which sometimes breaks the last strand in 
the relations between husband and wife and leads to the 
divorce court. 

“T fail to understand how you eat so much breakfast after 
a drunken orgy,” said John, glaring at his wife’s brother. 
“And, anyhow, I wish to God you wouldn’t come down in 
your pyjamas.” 

Never before had he spoken with such violence, and he was 
conscious of a rush of blood to the brain. 

Uncle Will was surprised. He lifted his eyebrows, and 
his big, rather flabby face flushed a trifle. But he helped 
himself calmly and amiably to another sausage. 

“You're hipped, John! What’s the matter with my 
pyjamas’? And what do you mean by ‘drunken orgy’ ?” 

“T mean what I say,” said John, with less violence, but 
an inburning flame of anger. “Night after night you drink 
yourself fuddled—on my whisky. What is worse, you are 
corrupting Cyril by your bad example and risky stories.” 

Uncle Will laughed in his good-natured, hearty way, and 
poured himself out another cup of coffee. 

“My dear old John, surely you don’t accuse me—me of all 
men!—of not being able to drink like a gentleman! As for 
my stories—young Cyril is a married man and no longer a 


The House with the Spare Bedrooms 189 


child. My little yarns are nothing to what he heard in the 
trenches.” 

“T object to them,” said John sternly. 

“You used to find them amusing, old boy!” 

“T object to the demoralising life that is taking possession 
of this house,” said John. “There’s nothing but idleness, 
lounging about, futility.” 

Uncle Will protested against the accusation of idleness. 
Only yesterday he had mowed the lawn, marked out the 
tennis court, mended a broken lock on the woodshed, caught 
three excellent perch for lunch, shot some rabbits for the 
family pot, and cut down a tree that would make good logs 
for winter fires. He was never idle. Canadian life had 
made him a handy man. 

“Isn't it about time you went back to Canada?” asked 
John. “You can’t live here forever, you know.” 

“God forbid!” said Uncle Will, showing a touch of tem- 
per for the first time. “Of course if you begrudge me 
house room in this old barn 

“T haven’t begrudged it,” said John; “but for your own 
sake you ought to be going now. Time is slipping away, and 
you have no prospects over here.” 

“T’m expecting the mail in to-morrow,” said Uncle Will, 
forgetful that for eighteen months it was always the next 
mail that was to bring him news of a good post. “My 
Canadian pals aren’t going to let me down, whoever else 
does.”’ : 

John felt the sting of those last words. But it was less 
hurtful than it would have been some months ago, before his 
sentimentality had been overstrained. 

“T don’t want to let you down,” he answered fretfully. 
“But I’m getting anxious about this prolonged idleness. Not 
only yours, but Ned Jermyn’s and Cyril’s. Every one must 
get some kind of a job in life.” 

“We didn’t shirk it when England had need of us,” said 
Uncle Will with a noble dignity. 

He looked down at his right leg, which had been punctured 
once by a German machine-gun bullet. Then he got up from 
the table and took half a slice of bread and crumbled it out- 


190 Little Novels of Nowadays 


side the window for the birds, whistling cheerfully ‘to his 
feathered friends. A water wagtail came and perched on the 
sundial outside, and a bolder robin strutted on the window 
sill and pecked a crumb out of Uncle Will’s fingers. 

It was little characteristics like that which had seemed so 
delightful to John Longhurst when his wife’s brother had 
first come to live with them. Even now, when he went out 
of the room with the reproachful smile of a man who has 
been much maligned but doesn’t harbour malice, John was 
struck with compunction. Perhaps he had been rather too 
abrupt and brutal in issuing his ultimatum. But the situa- 
tion could not go on like this. Merely from a financial point 
of view it could not go on. The burden of this old house 
and its upkeep was becoming too great. Many of the 
weekly bills were unpaid. The tradesmen were getting 
fractious. 

Cyril and Edward Jermyn arrived down to breakfast 
almost together, followed by Cyril’s wife, Barbara. 

John’s watchful eyes noticed that Cyril had not shaved 
yet—a new sign of demoralisation—and that Edward Jer- 
myn had a new pair of flannel trousers, spotlessly white, 
faultlessly creased, beneath his old Magdalen blazer. For a 
man of forty-five, who had been through the war, he was still 
astonishingly young. There was not a crow’s-foot about his 
bright, humorous eyes, nor more than a few grey hairs 
each side of his high forehead. Unlike Cyril, he was care- 
fully shaved, and his bronzed, rather hatchet-featured face 
—more like that of a naval officer than of a painter, poet and 
ex-soldier—was a handsome picture of good health and phil- 
osophical content. 

Barbara wore a low-necked blouse—daringly low-necked, 
thought her father-in-law, who was a Puritan at heart, 
though he prided himself on being Bohemian in his instincts 
—and a little white linen frock. | 

She greeted John with a “Hello, daddy—still feeding?” 
and served a plate of porridge to Ned Jermyn with the satiri- 
cal remark of “This for the bird-like appetite of a minor 
poet !” | 

“Not so much of that ‘minor,’ ma’am,” said Jermyn play- 


The House with the Spare Bedrooms 19} 


fully. “I and Will Shakespeare are among the few who 
have written a really perfect sonnet.” 

“But Shakespeare used to get paid for them,” said Bar- 
bara, “and you don’t.” 

“The difference between the Golden Age and the squalor 
of these deplorable times,” answered Jermyn. “The profiteer 
is not a patron of the arts. He buys showy motors and all 
vulgarities instead of seeking out beauty and good crafts- 
manship.” 

“T agree with him,” said Barbara. “I would prefer a good 
car to the most exquisite sentiment in rhymed verse or 
blank.” 

“Philistine !”” 

In passing Barbara to get the sugar from the sideboard, 
Edward Jermyn pinched the lobe of her ear. She did not 
resent the familiarity, but only slapped his hand. But John, 
with a quick glance at Cyril, noticed a kind of gloom settle 
on the boy’s face. 

“What’s doing to-day?” Cyril asked in a sullen voice, as 
though fed up with the prospect of the hours ahead, though 
it was breakfast time and a summer day with sunshine in 
the gardens. 

“A full programme, as far as I’m concerned,” said Jer- 
myn cheerfully. “At least an hour’s work on my portrait of 
Barbara—it’s going to establish my reputation—then a slash- 
ing single with you on the court—I beat you yesterday, young 
fellow !—then half an hour’s quiet meditation in the rose gar- 
den, to get inspiration for my sonnet cycle. After lunch, lit- 
erary work as the Muse may dictate. After tea, a foursome 
at croquet with Barbara as my partner against Mrs. Long- 
hurst and you. We'll give ’em another whopping, Barbara ! 
And after dinner, music. In what better way could we serve 
God and fulfil the works of peace?” 

He gave a smiling glance at John Longhurst, as though the 
question were unanswerable. But when an answer came he 
was surprised and shocked. 

John had risen from the table and stood with his back to 
the great fireplace, above which was the portrait of an old 
Longhurst dame in a Queen Anne dress. 


192 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“T think you could all serve God a great deal better,” he 
said, “if, instead of sponging on a hard-pressed man, you 
were to get out of this house and earn an honest living for 
yourselves. I hate to speak like that, but my patience is at 
an end. Haven’t you any spirit, Jermyn, or any pride, Cyril? 
Month after month passes and you spend it in idleness and 
pleasure—tennis, croquet, music, garden parties, late nights, 
tomfoolery, while I go up to town each day to a laborious 
task in a government office, and wonder how my slender 
salary is going to pay for all this entertainment. You talk 
about work, Jermyn. It’s merely another form of play! 
When you do get a few guineas out of a bit of painting you 
spend it on—a new pair of flannel trousers! As for you, 
Cyril, I am aghast at the future. What are you going to 
do for yourself and your wife when I can keep you no 
longer? When I drop dead in harness? The money I 
shall leave will be hardly enough to keep your poor mother 
in decent comfort. Are you going to sponge on her?” 

This speech—the longest John Longhurst had ever made 
in his life—was received in amazed silence by his family and 
friend, who gazed at one another in incredulity, as though 
they could not believe their ears. 

It was hard for them to believe, not knowing the secret 
thoughts in sleepless nights, the increasing irritation, the 
nerve storms and brain fag that had led up to this outburst. 
Daddy and dear old John, as he was called by his family and 
Ned Jermyn, had not altered in their eyes from the easy- 
going, good-natured, shy, unselfish man who wanted every- 
body to be happy, and had obviously survived the war for 
the divinely appointed purpose of providing a house and 
home for those who had been handicapped by war’s annoy- 
ing results in the economic sphere. He had even gone too 
far, they thought, in his mission. The two gardeners, who 
killed more plants than they reared, were Cockney fellows 
whom he had taken from a street organ because he could 
not bear to see men of his old battalion reduced to such a 
means of livelihood. His family had laughed at him for that. 
The very cook was the widow of one of his old sergeants, 
and hopelessly incompetent, with a perfect genius for burn- 


The House with the Spare Bedrooms 193 


ing a joint and wrecking a dinner. Jermyn had protested 
against such altruism. 

“I admire your sentiment, dear old John,” he said once, 
“but a woman shouldn’t be encouraged to spoil good food, 
even if she is the widow of an Old Contemptible.” 

Many times John had expressed his pleasure that the little 
old mansion should be a house of refuge, and had delighted 
in the intellectual activity of Edward Jermyn—his painting, 
his poetry, his music—which, he said, was a liberal education 
to anybody who had the privilege of his company. For 
Uncle Will’s knowledge of birds and beasts, his handy ways 
about the house and grounds, his prowess at all outdoor 
games, daddy—or dear old John—had shown the envious 
admiration of a town-bred man who doesn’t know the differ- 
ence between a sparrow and a bullfinch, and is a hopeless 
duffer at any sport. 

Hard to believe, though, that it was this same John who 
stood with his back to the fireplace and denounced those he 
loved best in the world as though they were guilty of atro- 
cious crimes. 

It was Barbara who broke the painful silence following 
his passionate indictment by a ripple of laughter, at the same 
time springing from the table and putting her hands on his 
shoulders. 

“My dear benevolent daddy-in-law! You must have got 
out of bed the wrong way this morning! Run out into the 
sunshine and laugh at the butterflies. ‘“God’s in his heaven: 
All’s right with the world!” 

“All is not right!” said John, with determined gloom. 
“Everything is wrong in this particular household.” 

“My dear old governor,” said Cyril, “you’re losing your 
sense of humour. That’s fatal. Have a game of tennis.” 

“I’m sick at the sight of tennis balls,” said the boy’s 
father. “Life isn’t a game. When are you going to finda 
career for yourself ?” 

“Don’t I search the ‘Situations Vacant’ in the Daily Tele- 
graph every blessed day?” asked Cyril impatiently. “Ts it 
my fault that there are a million and a half unemployed in 
England, and that I’m one of ’em? I didn’t make the old 


{OL Little Novels of Nowadays 


war and rot up the chances of youth. Show me a decent job, 
and [ll jump at it.” 

“There was that offer of a clerkship in Smallwood’s 
office,’ said his father. “You turned it down contemp- 
tuously.” 

“Lord, yes! You can’t expect a fellow who went to a 
public school and wore wings in the war to sit on a high stool 
as a giddy clerk! One must draw the line somewhere.” 

“You draw it too high,” said John. “As high as impossible 
illusions, like Uncle Will and Ned Jermyn here. You're all 
living in expectation of the unlikely and fantastic. You must 
get down to drudgery, as I do.” 

“That’s what’s the matter with you, dear old John,” said 
Edward Jermyn, with his handsome, whimsical, courteous 
smile. “Too much drudgery in that government office! It 
sours your taste of life, and I’m not surprised.” 

“Hear! Hear!” said Barbara. “I thoroughly agree.” 

“What you want, old fellow,’ continued Jermyn, “is to 
get back to the joie de vivre, the spirit of adventure, the 
carelessness of soul. How about a little holiday in Nor- 
mandy ?” 

“Ripping idea!” said Cyril. “I’m fed up with this house 
and garden.” 

“The open road,” said Jermyn, warming to his subject. 
“Old inns—the surf breaking on silver sands—wayside con- 
versations with peasants, wandering folk, open-air philoso- 
phers. You’re hipped. You want a change.” 

The word “hipped” spoiled the rest of the speech. It 
seemed to sting John Longhurst like a wasp. 

“TI dislike that word ‘hipped,’” he protested fretfully. 
“Uncle Will says I’m hipped. I’m not hipped! I’m only 
dismayed by the indolence of this household. Playing at 
hey; 

“A good game, John,” said Jermyn lightly. 

But John ignored him, and his voice hardened when he 
went on speaking. 

“This house can’t be maintained on a policy of drift, ten- 
nis, and amateur art.” 

“The old house is all right, dull as it is,” said Cyril. “It’s 


The House with the Spare Bedrooms 195 


not going to fall down, governor! It’s stood for three cen- 
turies, and will last a bit longer.” 

“IT wish I’d never inherited the place,” said John with 
immense gloom. “Your mother and I were happy in the 
little house in the Earl’s Court Road. There were no spare 
bedrooms there.” 

The last sentence annoyed Edward Jermyn. . He spoke as 
though it had touched his tenderest sensibilities. 

“I’m sorry you begrudge me an attic in this old rabbit 
hutch. Of course if that’s an ultimatum, I’ll pack my bags 
to-night. But I never expected to be turned out, neck and 
crop, by a man whose life I once saved—well—at some little 
risk. Forgive me for that reminder!” 

“T wish to heaven you hadn’t saved my rotten life!” said 
John, violently ; and at that remark, which was tragic enough, 
there was an outburst of laughter from Cyril and Barbara, 
in which Edward Jermyn joined. 

“My dear old daddy-in-law !” cried Barbara. “It’s noegood 
saying you’re not hipped. You are! You are! You are!” 

“It’s liver,” said Cyril. “For goodness sake take some 
strenuous exercise, governor !” 

Edward Jermyn’s musical laugh joined the hilarity of the 
two others. 

“If I hadn’t saved your life, John, I should have lost my 
1D yey ORs 

“Oh, well, of course, if you think I am being funny!” said 
John. 

He felt for his pipe in the side pocket of his jacket, and 
went abruptly from the morning room to the room that he 
called his study. 

Lately he had been studying such unpleasant forms. of 
research as income-tax returns, land tax, local rates, poor 
rate, and a bulky sheaf of papers marked legibly in his own 
hand, “Unpaid bills.” 

And they thought he was being funny! 

They also thought he was hipped! This house of inheri- 
tance had been a curse instead of a blessing. If only he had 
stayed on in the little stucco villa in the Earl’s Court Road 
he would not have been overweighted with debt and depres- 


196 Little Novels of Nowadays 


sion. By this time Cyril would have found a job in life. 
Edward Jermyn would be living on his own means—or at 
somebody else’s expense. Uncle Will would have gone back 
to Canada. 

He was most anxious about Cyril and Barbara, his wife. 
In spite of hilarious evenings with Uncle Will, the boy was 
miserable and demoralised. And all was not well between 
him and Barbara. They were seldom alone together now. 
Barbara was too often alone with Edward Jermyn. ‘That 
portrait was taking an unconscionable time! 

John raised his eyes from the bundle of income-tax 
returns, and gazed absent-mindedly through the casement 
window of his study. It looked on to a little Italian garden, 
paved with tiles through which grass grew, and closed in by 
clipped hedges. A figure of Mercury with his winged feet 
hovered above a leaden basin to which the garden birds 
came for refreshment. 

As John raised his head Barbara and Ned Jermyn passed 
the window on their way to the outhouse which Jermyn used 
as his studio. For a moment they stood, hand in hand, by 
the leaden bird bath. John heard Jermyn’s musical voice 
and the words he spoke. 

“Your portrait will be finished to-day, my dear. I can’t 
add another stroke to it! What shall we do without our 
precious hour together ?” 

“Paint me again!” said Barbara. ‘‘We mustn’t give up the 
only time we have to ourselves without interruption.” 

“What would Cyril say, and your worthy daddy-in-law ?” 

“Why should they say anything ?” 

Jermyn laughed his ripe, deep, mellow laugh. 

“Cyril is a wee bit jealous of our friendship, little girl 

“Oh, nonsense!” 

John saw the impatient shrug of her pretty shoulders as 
she passed behind one of the yew hedges with Jermyn. 

He stared again at the income-tax returns, but they meant 
nothing to him at that moment. This was a new danger, 
which as yet he had only vaguely guessed, though an uneasi- 
ness had been working in his mind, subconsciously, about this 
intimacy between his son’s wife and Jermyn—the man who 


{?? 


The House with the Spare Bedrooms 197 


had saved his life. They were too much together. They 
had little secret jokes that they did not share with the rest 
of the family. Their glances lately had been lingering and 
sentimental. And Cyril had noticed. That shadow on his 
face was a proof of some darkness in the boy’s spirit. 

Jermyn must go. Uncle Will must go. The boy must go. 
Cyril must get away from this lazy, do-nothing, sheltered 
life, and face the responsibilities of the open world, as a 
married man, away from the enervating influence of this old 
secluded house. It was all the fault of this house, with its 
spare bedrooms and its gardens of delight. His inheritance 
had not been a blessing, but a curse. If all else failed, the 
house must go. If only he could sell. the place—at a time 
when hundreds of old houses were up for sale—and unsale- 
able ! 

That thought came to John as a kind of desperate hope. 
He left his chair and paced up and down the room with a 
strange look of excitement. If he got rid of the house he 
would get rid of his debts, his guests, this new danger be- 
tween Jermyn and Barbara, this dreadful anxiety about 
Cyril. Take away the house from them and they would be 
forced to fend for themselves, like birds thrust from the 
parent nest for their own good. 

“Tt’s the only way,” said John Longhurst aloud; and his 
wife, who came into the room at that moment, smiled at him 
and looked surprised. 

“What’s the only way, my dear?” 

He hesitated to answer her. 

Standing there in the doorway, in a white dress and a gar- 
dening hat, with a rosebud fastened to her breast by the little 
brooch he had given her when they were married, she looked 
so placid and contented with life that he shirked telling her 
his decision that by any means they must get rid of the old 
house. 

It was useless, anyhow. She failed to understand his 
anxieties. When he had told her of the financial strain 
involved in the upkeep of the house she had answered plain- 
tively, “I’m sure I’m most economical, my dear,” as though 
he were accusing her of personal and wanton extravagance. 


198 Little Novels \of Nowadays 


“When he had complained bitterly of Cyril’s laziness she had 
‘pleaded for greater patience with a boy whose nerves had 
ibeen upset by the war. When he had threatened to expel 
Edward Jermyn she was shocked at this ingratitude to the 
man who had saved his life. When he had fretted against 
Uncle Will’s unending visit she had trotted out the old 
sentimental platitude that blood is thicker than water, and 
excused her brother for his drunken ribaldry on the score 
that he was the best-hearted fellow in the world and that 
one must make allowances for men who have been through 
the horrors of war. 

She had even turned the tables by telling her husband that 
he was getting morose in advancing years, and that he no 
longer seemed to enjoy making other people happy. 

“T’m afraid the war has spoiled your old idealism, my 
dear,” she had said. “It has made you hard and material- 
istic.” 

So now, when she stood there in the doorway of his study, 
he did not answer her question about the remark he had made 
aloud. 

“Nothing of importance,” he said. “What are you all 
doing to-day ?” 

Mrs. Longhurst laughed in a vexed way. 

“It seems strange that all of you have forgotten the vicar’s 
garden party. He particularly wants us all to go, including 
Uncle Will and Mr. Jermyn. There will be dancing on the 
lawn. I rely on you to join us, my dear.” 

“No,” he answered gruffly. “Nothing will induce me to 
go to such time-wasting nonsense. Besides, I’m going to be 
very busy this afternoon.” 

“Oh, those wretched old figures!” cried Mrs. Longhurst, 
glancing at the papers on his desk. ‘How you worry about 
them !” 

“It won’t be figures this afternoon,” said her husband. 
“It’s something more important even than those.” 

“The vicar will be extremely hurt if you don’t come with 
us !” 

“Hang the vicar!” said John sharply. 

He didn’t answer when his wife protested that his nerves 


The House with the Spare Bedrooms 199 


had gone to pieces for some reason or other. He knew that 
his nerves had gone to pieces and that he was on the edge of 
a nervous breakdown. He was relieved that she did not use 
the word “hipped.” He was waiting for it. If she had 
spoken it he would have shouted with rage. 

She gave him a reproachful glance and then left the room 
without another word, while he sat down at his desk again 
and stifled a groan. 

That afternoon he was left alone in the house. Even the 
dinner-spoiling cook and the two destructive gardeners and 
the impudent parlour maid had gone round to the vicar’s 
garden to serve in the refreshment tent. Ned Jermyn, under 
protest, sincere or otherwise, abandoned the programme he 
had mapped out for himself and accompanied Mrs. Long- 
hurst and Barbara, in a beautiful new suit of fawn brown 
and a panama hat, looking more elegant even than usual. 

“One must do one’s duty to society,” he said. “Otherwise 
civilisation will disintegrate.” 

Uncle Will, looking forward to the vicar’s claret cup, and 
a possible whisky, sloped off with Cyril, who protested that 
he loathed garden parties and detested both the vicar and his 
wife. 

They did not return to Longhurst Hall until eight o’clock, 
and, apart from Cyril, were in high spirits. 

The garden party, according to Mrs. Longhurst, had been 
most delightful. There had been games and sports, and 
Uncle Will had won the egg-and-spoon race, the badminton 
singles, and the cock-fighting match against the vicar, which 
had provoked roars of laughter. 

Edward Jermyn had also been the life and soul of the 
gathering, and had taught the village girls the one-step and 
the fox trot, to their intense delight, though Mrs. Arkwright, 
the vicar’s wife, had been rather shocked. He and Barbara 
had given some demonstration dancing, to the great admira- 
tion of all assembled. 

“They are so perfectly matched!” was the verdict of 
Lady Ashstead, as Mrs. Longhurst reported. “They look 
as though they were one mind in two bodies—such unison 
and such harmony!” 


200 Little Novels of Nowadays 


Cyril showed his ill-humour at this account by the words 
“Silly old fathead!” with reference to Lady Ashstead, and 
he only gave a sulky frown when Barbara and Ned Jermyn 
laughed at this description of the leading lady in the county. 

“It was such a pity you didn’t come with us!” said Mrs. 
Longhurst to her husband. “I can’t think what you have 
been doing all this time alone. It quite spoiled my enjoy- 
ment when I thought of you moping here.” 

“T didn’t mope,” answered her husband. “I was busy.” 

He seemed to be busy still, for after dinner he retired again 
to his study and shut the door. But several times in the 
course of an hour he opened it again and stood in the pas- 
sage outside, listening intently. He could hear the noise 
of laughter and music in the billiard room. Cyril thumped 
out some ragtime tunes, and later Uncle Will’s voice roared 
out the song of the “Long, Long Trail.” 

Mrs. Longhurst was sitting with them, and stayed up 
later than usual. John could hear his wife’s placid laugh 
when the billiard room door was opened now and then. 

He shut his own door cautiously and quietly whenever that 
happened, until, presently, he turned his light out and then 
stood in the darkness of the passage, listening again and 
looking towards the light in the hall beyond. 

He did not stir when Barbara came out of the billiard 
room—at a quarter to ten, as he could tell by the luminous 
hands of his wrist watch—followed a minute later by Jer- 
myn. They stood a little while below the great stairway, 
whispering, and John was almost certain, but not quite, that 
Jermyn bent down and kissed the girl’s hands. She gave a 
little laugh, and slapped him, and then both of them went 
back to the billiard room, where Cyril was playing a senti- 
mental ballad. 

Uncle Will, excited, doubtless, by his success at the 
vicar’s garden party, and stimulated, as usual, by his after- 
dinner drinks, was in boisterous spirits, and his voice was 
loudest and his laughter most frequent in that room on the 
other side of the hall in which John was standing motionless. 
Presently it was Uncle Will’s turn to come out. He stumbled 
up the oak stairway and seemed to be busy with some metal 


} 


The House with the Spare Bedrooms 201 


work on the landing above. John heard him give a loud 
chuckle, now and then, as though vastly amused. Once he 
cursed, when something fell with a metallic ring on to the 
polished boards. 

A few minutes later he appeared again, but not in his 
usual form, shining in the light that came from the electric 
bulb in the old pont lantern at the foot of the stairway. 
He was clad cap-a-pie in the suit of knight’s armour to which 
it was his habit to address ridiculous remarks when he went 
to bed in a state of fuddled humour. 

He clanked across the hall like Richard Coeur de Lion, 
flung open the billiard room door, and gave a great shout of 
“What ho, varlets! By my halidom, I would fain quaff a 
goblet of good wine with ye!” 

A burst of laughter applauded his appearance. Mrs. Long- 
hurst’s laugh rang out shrilly. Barbara gave a loud, comi- . 
cal squeal. Edward Jermyn’s musical voice was moved to 
mirth. 

It was at that moment that John stepped out of the shad- 
owed doorway of his study, and stood looking anxiously up 
the oak stairway. 

From the left-hand room on the landing, his own bed- 
room, a thin cloud of brownish smoke crept under the door, 
and a moment later a little red flame shot out, like a tongue, 
through one of the panels. It grew longer and licked a piece 
of tapestry on the landing outside. For a moment it did not 
seem to like the taste of that tapestry, for it drew back, but 
then, a second later, darted out again and set light to the 
ancient and moth-eaten hanging, so that it was suddenly 
ablaze. 

John seemed spellbound by the sight. His face, lit by the 
electric bulb in the ironwork lantern, was intensely white, 
except for dark shadows about his eyes. For at least a min- 
ute he stood as motionless as when he had been listening in 
his doorway. Then, drawing a quick, noisy breath, he turned 
and ran down the passage to the billiard room. 

Uncle Will, in his knight’s armour, was brandishing a 
whisky bottle as though it were a club. He had his visor 
up, and was making heroic postures. Mrs. Longhurst was 


202 Little Novels of Nowadays 


laughing weakly, and Barbara, Ned Jermyn and Cyril were 
flinging cushions at the iron-plated figure of Uncle Will. 

This scene was a momentary vision when John burst open 
the door and stood Pte his family and friend with an 
ashen face. 

“The house is on fire » he said in a loud, terrible voice. 

It was very much on fire by the time they had all made a 
rush for the hall. The old tapestry on the landing was a 
spreading flame, and the panelling was disastrously alight. 
John’s bedroom was a furnace from which a fire roared out 
noisily. 

The servants had just become aware of the smell of smoke 
and the crackle of old wood. The cook came up from the 
kitchen below stairs screaming the word “Fire!” The par- 
lour maid was shrieking in hysteria; the two gardeners, 
whom John had rescued from a piano organ, obeyed Jer- 
myn’s order to run quickly to the stable yard for buckets 
of water. 

It was useless to pour buckets of water on a fire that was 
devouring the heart of an old manor house. In less than 
twenty minutes there was no question but that of escape. 

John led out his wife, trying to comfort her. She was 
_ greatly distressed, and wept in a tragic way at the sight of 
the flames devouring the house she had loved so much. 
Cyril caught hold of Barbara when she tried to make her 
way into the morning room to carry off some trinkets, and it 
almost required force as well as persuasion to rescue her 
from the heat and fumes. 

Both Uncle Will and Ned Jermyn were certainly gallant 
in their efforts to subdue the flames by organising a service 
of water with hand buckets. They were persuaded of its 
futility by John. 

“It’s useless! It’s useless!” he repeated sharply. “Noth- 
ing will save the old place now!” 

He was strangely and heroically calm in the face of this 
great misfortune. 

The villagers came crowding up, with willing hearts and 
hands for rescue work, but in the end the roof fell in, and 
when the fire was spent the ramshackle old manor house was 


‘ 
; 


The House with the Spare Bedrooms 203 


a gutted wreck. Only the ground floor was saved. The top 
part of the house, including all the spare bedrooms, was 
utterly destroyed. 


John Longhurst and his wife are now living in a semi- 
detached house in West Kensington. Uncle Will has gone 
back to Canada. Edward Jermyn has departed to paint soci- 
ety beauties in New York, where he is doing very well. Cyril 
has a job in the Ministry of Pensions, and has taken a house 
for Barbara, and the baby, in a suburb of London. 

Poor Mrs. Longhurst never ceases to mourn for the beauty 
of the old house: which was hers, but her husband, who looks 
less worried than before, and is much admired in White- 
hall for the philosophical way in which he accepted a heavy 
blow from Fate, tries to console her with the thought “there 
are worse misfortunes at sea.” 

The two gardeners are trying their luck with a piano organ 
again, and John gives them a generous tip when they come to 
play beneath his windows. 


VUI: THE WELLS OF TRUTH 


““T OOK here, father, I can’t stand this poisonous place 

any more. I’m off!’ These words, spoken fretfully, 
almost passionately, by a young man with a fair, freckled 
face, and flame-red hair, rang out in the editor’s room of 
The Daily Record. 

It was a room in which no one had the right, nor, as a 
rule, the inclination, to speak passionately, except the editor 
himself, who now sat back in his carved-oak chair before a 
Jacobean table—sham antique, but rather handsome—with 
raised eyebrows and a queer, ironical smile on his melan- 
choly, haggard-looking face. 

Edward Dalton, managing editor of The Daily Record, did 
not often allow himself to get angry. His sarcasm was suf- 
ficiently terrifying to his staff without the need of loud 
speech or table thumping. Now, when his own son, nomi- 
nally a sub-editor, but always a rebel, announced his decision 
to throw up his job, Dalton merely showed by a little tinge 
of colour creeping up his neck to the tips of his ears that he 
was deeply annoyed. 

He answered quietly, with a kind of sharp edge to his 
voice: “Better shut the door, hadn’t you, if you propose to 
make a scene?” 

It was not the first scene that had happened between 
them, in this very room, since his son had come back after the 
war, grown from a boy to a man, almost a stranger to him, 
rather nervy, bitter in his way of speech, hating an indoor 
life, inefficient and insubordinate as a sub-editor, and full of 
whims and crankiness. Before he had earned his first 
month’s salary he had announced his marriage to an artist 
girl—he had picked her up in a rowdy set at Chelsea—and 
they had just had their first baby in the cottage at Leather- 
head, which he pretended to prefer to his father’s house in 


Lowndes Square. 
204 


The Wells of Truth 205 


The boy shut the door with an angry shove and stood there 
ina sulky way, smoking an old pipe and reminding his father 
of the days when he used to be a shock-headed Peter, pro- 
testing that his nurse was a nasty cat because she insisted on 
poking out his ears with a hard towel. 

“My last night!’ he said. “I can’t stand that ass Pinney 
any more. I’ll forfeit a month’s screw.” 

“That’s all right,” said Dalton coldly. “But what am I 
going to tell your mother? She’s worried to death about you 
already.” 

Young Frank shrugged his shoulders uneasily. 

“No need to worry, father. Meg and I are perfectly 
happy. I can always earn a bit asa free lance. I’m learning 
the trick of short stories.” 

“A poor game,” said Edward Dalton. “I know what free- 
lance work means—constant disappointment, endless worry. 
Better stick it out here, Frank.” 

The boy shook his head and said, “Me for liberty and a 
clean life!’ 

“It puts me into a difficult position with Brockham, 
Dalton. “What the dickens am I to tell him?” 

The name of the proprietor of The Daily Record seemed 
to enrage the red-headed boy. 

“Td like to tell him a few things myself. By Jove, I 
would !” 

“What things?” asked his father. ‘“What’s your trouble, 
barring laziness?” 

The boy took a short, sharp breath, as though about to get 
something rather oppressive off his chest. 

“I'd like to tell him what I think of this house of lies, this 
cesspool of sex stuff, this manufactory of faked news, this 
stirring pot of world strife, this pander shop of mob passion, 
this brewer’s vat of poison gas, this propaganda agency of 
the next war!” 

Edward Dalton laughed grimly at his son’s outburst. 

“I didn’t know you had such a genius for head-lines. 
I’ve never observed them in your copy. Well, if you’ve made 
up your mind * 

He bent over his desk and smoothed out the proof of a 


3 


said 


206 Little Novels of Nowadays 


leading article. Young Frank Dalton was not near enough 
to the desk to see that his father’s hand trembled a little. 

The boy stared gloomily at the Turkey carpet, and then 
looked up with a whimsical smile as though all his anger 
had gone. 

“Sorry for a somewhat explosive speech,” he said. “All 
the same, it’s best for me to clear out. The spirit of this 
place and that swine Pinney get on my nerves beyond all 
words. See you down at the cottage one day?” 

His father did not answer and pretended to be absorbed 
in his work, though the hard line of his lips softened a little. 
Young Frank, without further words, lounged out of the 
room and shut the door behind him more quietly than usual. 

For a few moments after his son’s exit, Edward Dalton 
sat motionless at his desk, staring at his brass inkpot. He 
looked tired and worried, perhaps a little ill. The hard mask 
that he had worn in the presence of his son, as he wore it 
habitually before his staff, seemed to fall from him when he 
was alone. His face revealed some of that sensibility which 
had been the outstanding quality of his character as a young 
man, when he had aspired to literature and cherished ideals 
in the way of art and life, before he had been hardened by 
the rough game of journalism as he had played it for the 
prize of editorial success. He had fought the strain of weak- 
ness 1n his character. At first he had hated to sack men at 
the bidding of his proprietor, or when he had squeezed them 
dry of vitality. He had steeled himself all right; broken 
scores of men who had been incompetent or worn out or too 
independent in their views. That had given him a bad repu- 
tation in Fleet Street, as he knew. They called him a ruth- 
less swine—so Frank informed him. Well, never, except in 
the case of his own son, had he allowed friendship or per- 
sonal relations to interfere with his judgment. That was 
the only way to hold the editorial job that had come to him 
first as news editor, then as foreign editor, now as managing 
editor. The paper, first and last; and absolute allegiance to 
the man who paid. That was the only way of safety in these 
days when the newspaper business was a cut-throat game, 
with precious few prizes as big as this. 


The Wells of Truth 207, 


Precious few! If he lost The Record he would never get 
another job as managing editor. He was too much tarred 
with the Brockham touch. He knew that. He had seen 
it clearly from the moment he accepted Brockham’s 
terms. 

“T’ll pay you to carry out my policy, follow my lead, fulfil 
my ideas of what a newspaper ought to be—and it’s going to 
be worth your while.” 

He had accepted these conditions at the price named, and 
subordinated every conviction of his own, all his youthful, 
finicky ideas of truth and honour and moral uplift—as the 
Americans call it—for the fulfilment of his bargain. It had 
been worth while. He was the most powerful editor in 
Fleet Street, the most successful journalist outside the big 
five of newspaper proprietors. He enjoyed social and polit- 
ical power. Anyhow, his wife could crowd his house in 
Lowndes Square with celebrities and great folk whenever 
she cared to give a reception. He drew the biggest salary 
of any editor in London. 

Dalton let his eyes wander from his brass inkstand to the 
photograph of his daughter that stood beside it. Her face 
smiled up at him with its alluring, mischievous look. Some- 
times when he glanced at it in office hours his eyes lighted 
up, but to-night he sighed heavily. There was another 
photograph in the same frame with that girl’s face. It was 
a portrait of his son in the uniform of an officer in the tank 
corps; smart, cheeky-looking, full of pluck. It was the 
remembrance of Frank’s sarcastic contempt of The Record, 
his utter scorn for his father’s work, his loathing of the job 
he had now chucked, as he would say, that caused Dalton 
to give a heavy sigh which was half a groan. He touched 
the bell on his desk and told the boy who answered it to send 
in the night editor. 

It was Herbert Pinney, who had been in lodgings with him 
in Brixton, twenty-five years ago, when they were reporters 
on rival papers, with ambitions of novel writing, play writ- 
ing, and even—good Lord!—mystical verse in the style of 
Rossetti. Well, Pinney no longer wrote mystical verse, and 
had moved years ago from Brixton to Kensington, and was 


208 Little Novels of Nowadays 


cynical to the uttermost recess of his soul, and as hard as 
steel under his mask of geniality and good nature. 

“How are things going?” asked Dalton. 

Pinney threw the stump of his cigar into the fire grate and 
felt for another in his breast pocket. He was a stout, florid 
man, with heavily puffed eyes and a waistline too big for his 
height. , 

“Up to time, if you'll let go of the leader, old man. Can’t 
think why you hang to it so long.” 

“Rendall doesn’t keep in line with our policy,” answered 
Dalton. “Brockham went off the deep end because of that 
reference the other night to oil in Mesopotamia.” 

Pinney grimaced and bit off the end of his cigar. 

“Rendall has oil on the brain. Better sack him before 
he makes a stink about it.” 

“Yes,” said Dalton grimly; “he’s always dragging out the 
ugly truth. That’s why I have to hack his stuff about.” 

Pinney puffed out a lovely ring of smoke as he lay back 
in one of the leather chairs and smiled at the ceiling. 

“We can’t allow him to make a hobby of it—at our ex- 
pense. We’re here to keep out the ugly facts if they’re 
hostile to the interests of our worthy proprietor and those 
of his friends, relatives and confederates. Brockham hires 
us as his faithful truth twisters.” 

“You’re a master of the art, Pinney,” said Dalton with 
a touch of sarcasm. 

“Under your leadership, old man.” 

The two men looked into each other’s eyes for just the 
fraction of a second with a kind of challenge. Then Pinney 
smiled in his fat, amiable way, and changed the topic of con- 
versation. 

“Your son tells me he’s shaking our unpleasant dust off his 
mercurial feet—in other words, quitting.” 

“Yes,” answered Dalton. ‘“He’s been cursing his fate 
for some time. The war unfitted him for this kind of life, 
I suppose. What was his particular trouble to-night?” 

Pinney shrugged his broad shoulders and gave a chuckle. 

“Same trouble as Rendall’s. That boy of yours is a bright 
young idealist under his red hair. Thinks journalists ought 


b 


The Wells of Truth 209 


to save humanity from its sins, and all that. Has the inno- 
cent idea that a newspaper ought to lead the nation unto 
righteousness. JI wonder you haven’t put him wise, old 
man.” : 

Dalton glanced over at Pinney with a look of irritation. 

“D’you think I haven’t argued with him? And d’you 
think it’s any good, from modern fathers to modern sons? 
There’s a gulf between us, unbridgeable! I suppose the war 
made it. Did he have a row with you?” 

“Not the first! I get on his sensitive nerves. He thinks 
I’m a gross, brutal, unkind man. When I told him to cut 
out that speech by General Smuts—dead against our line— 
he went up in the air like a flame-tipped rocket.” 

“Smuts’ speech ?” 

“Yes,” said Pinney. “Says Europe is like a sleep-walker 
on the edge of a precipice, and all its leaders are raving mad. 
That’s indirect criticism of Brockham’s crowd, to say noth- 
ime ot France 

“Frank was hipped because you suppressed it?’ asked 
Dalton. 

Pinney laughed with a good-natured sound, but his eyes 
had an ugly look in them. 

“Played the rebel against my authority with the sub-edi- 
tors. lf it had been anybody but your son, old man 
“What Smuts says is God’s truth!’ he shouted, so that all the 
fellows stopped writing. ‘If we don’t wake up it’s the ruin 
of civilisation!’ Then he told me that if we didn’t print 
this speech he would walk out of the office, and be damned 
to all of us! Flat rebellion, old man!” 

Dalton agreed. Of course Frank had behaved foolishly. 
It was impossible, he admitted, to keep the boy on the staff. 

“All the same—theoretically—he’s right about that speech 
of: Smuts’? 

Pinney raised his eyebrows and let his cigar flop at the 
corner of his full-blooded lips. 

~Rightr 

“Yes ; it’s a damned shame to suppress it. Smuts is one of 
the few men who give a lead to the world.” 

Pinney flung half a good cigar into the fire and twisted 


210 Little Novels of Nowadays 


round in his chair, to stare at Dalton. Then he burst into a 
hearty laugh. 

“Ted, old boy, you’re not slipping into the slough of 
idealism, are you? Young Frank hasn’t been undermining 
your common sense, I hope; or Rendall, with his world- 
saving notions.” 

Dalton made a gesture of impatience with his paper knife. 

“There’s a limit to the suppression of news,” he answered. 
“We can’t keep out every word that happens to conflict with 
Brockham’s point of view. Smuts is a great man... I 
believe that if Jesus Christ came to London and denounced 
corruption in high places you would suppress the agency 
report.” 

“T certainly should.” 

After a gust of laughter, Pinney rose from his chair and 
put his plump hand on Dalton’s shoulder. 

“Ted, old boy, I suspect you of weakening. Honour 
bright, I do! As an old and trusty friend, I advise you to 
tonic yourself up a bit. A week at Brighton wouldn’t do 
you any harm. That’s what Brockham thinks too.” 

Dalton raised his head sharply at this mention of the pro- 
prietor. 

“What’s he been saying?” 

“Nothing to me. It was something he said to Heneage in 
the club the other day. At least Heneage says so.” 

“Says what?” 

Dalton’s nerves seemed to be rattled. He spoke heatedly. 
Pinney smiled at him, but with watchful eyes. 

“Perhaps I oughtn’t to repeat. He told Heneage that he 
thought you were losing grip. He seemed to be devilishly 
wrathy about that paragraph you passed on starvation in 
Germany. Thought it oughtn’t to have been published be- 
cause it aroused false sentiment. “Dalton is losing grip,’ 
he said to Heneage. I thought you ought to know.” 

“Much obliged,” said Dalton with icy sarcasm. ‘And next 
time you see Heneage tell him from me that he’s a loose- 
mouthed liar!” 

Pinney was vastly amused. He chuckled and laughed over 
this description of Heneage, one of the big five. 


The Wells of Truth eit 


“T don’t think he was lying. Still, you never know. But 
what about that leader? It’s holding up page four.” 

Dalton handed him the proof and Pinney waved it in a 
friendly way as he left the room. At the door he turned 
round, still chuckling. 

“I’m not likely to give Heneage that message. I may want 
him to give me a job one of these days. Oh, it’s a great 
game, this life, if one keeps one’s sense of humour!” 

Dalton spoke aloud after the door had closed: 

“T’m losing my sense of humour, and that’s the curse of 
iy 

The telephone bell summoned him, but he ignored the 
sound, staring savagely at the little instrument. It was 
Brockham, of course. He generally rang up at this time. 
He couldn’t leave the paper alone. ‘The bell rang again, 
insistently, and Dalton picked up the receiver. 

“Oh, good evening. Yes, the paper is well under way. 
Smuts’ speech? No, we’re keeping that out. The riots in 
Germany? Well, we’re printing a bit, but dampening it all 
down, of course. Rather a pity, in a way ...TI say it’s 
rather a pity from a news point of view. Vernon’s mes- 
sage from Essen is marvellous stuff—full of drama. Pro- 
German? Nota bit of it! Sack him? No, I won’t hear of 
it. He’s one of our best men. No, I’m damned if I will, 
Brockham! Well, let’s talk it over at lunch to-morrow. 
Good-night.”’ 

Dalton smashed down the receiver and uttered an oath. 
He stood for a moment gazing round the room, at the oak- 
panelled walls, the Medici colour prints, the grandfather’s 
clock, the Jacobean chairs. Very handsome; suitable to the 
dignity of a managing editor. When he had first stood with 
his back to this fireplace, surveying this room, he had been 
uplifted by a sense of success. He had struggled up all the 
rungs of journalism to the top of the ladder. After a hard 
fight, through the squalors and humiliations and insecurities 
of Fleet Street, he had arrived in this room of power. 
Managing editor of The Daily Record, at forty-one years of 
age! Not a bad reward for great endeavour. His wife was 
pleased, almost satisfied. Well, she would be able to spread 


A es Little Novels of Nowadays 


herself a little now. So he had thought when he first took 
possession of this room, where for ten years he had spent 
fourteen out of the twenty-four of most working days. 

To-night he hated the very sight of the room. It had 
become his prison house, and lately the torture chamber of 
his soul. Queer, that! As managing editor of The Daily 
Record he ought not to have a soul. It*was not in the con- 
tract. It didn’t belong to the machinery that he controlled 
for the production of a two-million circulation. He wasn’t 
paid to have a soul, or a conscience, or whatever the thing 
was that lately had begun to nag at him and give him strange 
visions of forces—bigger than a two-million circulation— 
bearing down upon him in this room, and upon every in- 
dividual in England and in Europe. Forces of revolt and 
anarchy were stirring hunger-stricken people; forces of hate 
and fear were preventing any recovery from the ruin and 
wretchedness of a war that had destroyed the wealth of 
the world; forces of passionate stupidity and entrenched 
ignorance were leading the people of Europe, as sure as fate, 
to a tragic doom. 

Sitting here in this room he was a receiving instrument 
connected by live wires to all the nerve centres of the world. 
All day long there came to his desk flimsies holding the latest 
bulletins of the world’s disease, from news agencies, from 
special correspondents, from a thousand sources of informa- 
tion. His expert brain could put them together like a jig- 
saw puzzle. They produced a picture blackly etched on his 
mind. Each little item of fact fitted exactly into a moving 
picture of endless reels. Day by day he saw the unwinding 
of a coil of fate that was leading to a financial crash in 
Europe, the heaping of ruin on ruin, new wars, more fright- 
ful than the last. And it was his job, by selection of news, 
by suppression of facts, by false emphasis, distortion and 
evasion, the trick of the snappy headline and the audacious 
lie in big-faced type, to hide the vision of that reality from 
the British people. All the power of this engine that he 
controlled was used to stir up their passion, pander to their 
vanity, prejudice and ignorance, and to lead them deliberately 
into the abyss that yawned ahead. 


The Wells of Truth Dis 


He was in this handsomely furnished room, and in this 
seat of power, a traitor to truth, and the bought man of 
those evil forces that were closing in upon the human family. 
Not a pleasant thought! Lately it had nagged at him, kept 
him awake at night, destroyed that sense of humour which 
had been his shield against the vulgarities and dishonesties 
of the journalistic game. : 

His private secretary, an obsequious, smiling fellow—Dal- 
ton wished he would leave off smiling sometimes in such a 
damned servile way—came in with a bunch of letters and 
asked for instructions about certain points. The Berlin cor- 
respondent was huffed because his messages had been mas- 
sacred by sub-editors. The Prime Minister’s private secre- 
tary would be glad to see the editor any day next week. He 
wanted to indicate the Government’s policy about French 
action in Germany. The gravity of it must be minimised 
at all costs. He also wanted to sound the editor as to the 
state of public opinion on the Near East. Would they 
stand for the mobilisation of the army reserves in the 
event of a Turkish advance? Events were most threat- 
ening. 

The editor’s secretary smiled as though the threat amused 
him. 

“That'll do,” said Dalton. “They’ll keep till to-morrow. 
Give me a hand with my coat, will you?” 

The secretary helped him into his coat, smoothing the 
astrakhan collar as though he loved it, and he caressed the 
editor’s silk hat before handing it to him. 

“Good night,” said Dalton. 

As he left the office he listened for a moment to the throb 
_ of the great machines. They were printing the early edition 
for the country. Dalton glanced at his wrist watch through 
force of habit. Yes, up to time all right. The two-million 
circulation was under way. In another hour part of it would 
be on the night trains, carrying the day’s Record as it had 
been arranged, selected and edited by Dalton and his sub- 
editors—to every part of the country. 

A printer’s boy came up with the contents bill, to be passed 
by Pinney upstairs. Dalton stopped him and said, “Let’s 


214 Little Novels of Nowadays 


4 


see.” It was one of Pinney’s tonic slogans, as he called 
them: 


BRITISH TRADE LEADS THE WORLD 
BOOM YEAR ASSURED 


“That’s all right,” said Dalton. 

He said good night to the commissionaire, who saluted 
him at the swing door. Outside, the managing editor stood 
for a moment under the revolving light of the greatest sky 
sign in London: 


THE DAILY RECORD 
ALL THE TRUTH 


The horn on his car gave a gurgle like a frightened pea- 
cock as a sign that his chauffeur had seen him. The car 
drew out of an alley on the opposite side of the way. 

Through the swing door came a young man in a hurry. 
It was young Frank, who collided sharply with his father, 
and said, “Sorry, dad.” 

“What train are you getting?” asked Dalton. 

“The last. But I’ve twenty minutes to spare, so I'll do 
a bit of a stroll down the old Embankment.” 

“Tl walk with you,” said his father, “if you’ve no objec- 
tion.” 

For the life of him he could not keep the sarcastic note out 
of those last words, through force of habit. 

“Not in the least,” answered Frank. “It’s not my Em- 
bankment.” 

They had been edgy like that, speaking with latent hostility, 
or at least across a gulf of misunderstanding, ever since the 
boy had tried his hand at journalism under his father’s 
command. And yet Dalton craved for his son’s affection, 
for a comradeship that he could not get because of his own 
coldness of manner, some queer shyness. 

He told his chauffeur to drive home alone, and walked by 
his son’s side silently down Whitefriars Street to the Em- 
bankment. Frank whistled a bit of ragtime and thrust his 


The Wells of Truth DAN 


felt hat back from his forehead, as though to cool it from 
the heat of the sub-editors’ room that he had left for- 
ever. 

A soft wet wind was blowing, and the river lights were 
blurred on the black old waterway because of little ruffling 
waves. On the Surrey side an advertisement of whisky— 
a drunken Scot in full colours—appeared and disappeared, 
and the wharves were black beneath it. There was the swish 
of taxi traffic down the Embankment, and their lamps made 
a stream of light along the wet highway. 

“I always used to walk this way after the paper had gone 
to bed, when I was your age,” said Dalton. “I used to get 
the last train home to Brixton.” 

“Before my time,” said Frank, laughing. ‘Thank good- 
ness!” 

All struggling journalists were supposed to live at Brixton. 
Some actually did. It was incredible that his father should 
ever have belonged to that squalid suburb. Frank thought 
so, as he glanced for a second at that tall figure at his side, 
in a well-cut coat with an astrakhan collar, and a silk hat, 
as the symbol of power and success. 

“Pinney and I used to dig together,” said Dalton. “Some- 
times we used to walk all the way home—quite a step—to 
save the train fare.” 

“Holy poverty!’ was Frank’s expression of astonishment. 
He’d had no notion that his father had started so low down 
the scale as that. 

“I remember there used to be a coffee stall at Kenning- 
ton. Sometimes we used to get baked potatoes there. Jolly 
good they were—in those days!” 

He could smell them now, and the remembrance of youth 
came back to him with a salt fragrance. 

“Pretty good, still,’ said Frank. “Meg cooks them in a 
most ambrosial way.” 

Dalton gave a sideways glance at this boy by his side, who 
had his hat right off now, so that the wind stirred his 
carroty hair. 

“Life and baked potatoes taste good at twenty-five.” 

“Why not at fifty?’ asked Frank, with the whimsical 


216 Little Novels of Nowadays 


intolerance of youth. “The jolly old baked potato hasn’t 
changed its flavour, nor life its good adventure.” 

How little did youth know or guess! How difficult to get 
its sympathy and understanding! 

They walked on again in silence. Dalton wanted to reveal 
his soul to his boy, to cry out to him for comradeship, to 
get even his respect, instead of that boyish contempt, un: 
disguised, for the job he did, and his success, and the power 
he had for the price paid. But he asked only a hard ques- 
tion. 

“That love-in-a-cottage idea—won’t it pall on you and 
that child wife of yours?” 

“It hasn’t begun to yet,” said Frank, laughing good- 
humouredly. “Meg and I get a lot of fun out of it. Now 
that I have my liberty again rs 

He did not finish his sentence. Perhaps he meant that 
there would be even greater fun, more time for love. 

His father spoke the word “Liberty!” with a gruff laugh, 
and then stood still for a moment, as though to look at the 
curve of the river with its gleaming lights reflected in the 
inky water. A train was crossing the iron bridge from 
Charing Cross, with a trailing cloud of smoke and fire, and 
its windows shining like a string of jewels. 

“Liberty !”’ he said again. “My dear chap, there’s no such 
thing in this life. We must all be slaves of some task- 
master. We must all compromise, do work we hate for the 
wage we get, economise with truth itself in order to keep 
a home together or pay the butcher’s bill. Haven’t you 
found that out?” 

It was self-defence, the apology of his life. 

“I deny it!” said Frank, cheerfully. “No taskmaster is 
going to stop me writing short stories as I want to write 


“Yes,” said Dalton; “the hardest taskmaster of all— 
public opinion. The verdict of the mob. If you don’t 
please that you'll starve.” 

“T’ll educate public opinion,” said Frank with youthful, 
imperturbable arrogance. “Meg is the only critic Ill listen 


The Wells of Truth guy 


to. So far she’s pleased with my stuff. She couldn’t bear 
the idea of my writing much for The Record.” 

“Ts that so? She doesn’t approve of its moral and lit- 
erary tone, I understand?” 

Dalton spoke ironically, with his usual icy iaugh. Frank 
answered bluntly, not aware of cruelty, not giving his father 
credit for any sensitive nerves beneath his mask. 

“She thinks it a pestilential sheet. Her idealism won’t 
stand for it at any price. Calls it ‘The Muckrake’!” 

“Very charming and amiable!” said Dalton bitterly. 
“When you’ve four babies instead of one, and short stories 
don’t bring in a regular income, she'll be less intolerant of 
a paper that pays good money.” 

“Not she! Meg is as obstinate as a mule on a point of 
principle.” | 

Father and son walked on again, the boy with his springy 
stride, his ruffled hair, his freckled face held up to the wet 
wind like a fawn smelling the first odour of spring in the 
woods; the elderly man, silk-hatted, with a haggard, brood- 
ing face and downcast eyes. It was several minutes before 
Dalton spoke again, and then he asked a question abruptly. 

“T suppose you see a lot of young folk—ex-officers, fel- 
lows of your own age. What do they think of things?” 

“What sort of things?” 

“The situation generally, in Europe and here. Have they 
got any ideas as to the meaning of it all?” 

Young Frank laughed into the wet darkness. He thought 
of all the conversations he heard among Meg’s friends, 
down Chelsea way, and in his club of ex-officers, and in tea 
shops where he met his pals. They had plenty of ideas, all 
conflicting and confused; argued hotly, interminably, with 
terrific cynicism. 

“Most of ’em think we’re in the deuce of a mess. Pretty 
obvious, that! Meg’s crowd—artists mostly—are out for 
peace. No patience with the hate stuff and raking up racial 
passions. Most of my pals—not all, by a long chalk—think 
Kurope’s going to the devil. I agree with them, on the 
whole. France and Germany, the Balkans, Russia—the 


218. 7% Little Novels of Nowadays 


whole blooming Mohammedan world—full of explosive 
stuff. Bound to go off before long, barring miracles. 
We're asking for it! There may be one alternative, of 
course.” 

“What’s that?” 

Frank stared at a sky sign over Victoria Station, as 
though reading its message. 

“General decadence, nations too low grade even for war 
on a big scale. Just a slipping down into poverty and a 
disease of civilisation. ... Well, I’m satished with my 
little cottage, with Meg and the blue-eyed blinker. I don’t 
care a damn for the world, if it will go on being mad and 
bad. That’s my little philosophy of egotism.” 

They were now at Victoria, standing on a save-my-life, 
round which a stream of taxis were swirling—the theatre 
crowd getting home to the suburbs. 

Dalton made a sudden confession to his son. 

“Perhaps you’re right about that cottage. I envy you, 
Frank. I’d give every dashed thing in the world to have 
your youth again, and a free pen, and poverty with the 
grace of love.” 

He grasped his son’s arm, pressing it tight for a moment, 
and then walked away towards Ebury Street on the way to 
Lowndes Square in the heart of Belgravia. Frank looked 
after him, astonished, touched with a queer sense of pity 
for the first time in relation to his father. 

Dalton walked slowly to his house, and saw by the lighted 
windows and some waiting motor cars that his wife’s guests 
had not yet gone, though it was getting on to midnight. 
The door opened, letting out a gush of light in which stood 
an elderly couple in evening clothes—Lord and Lady Ban- 
stead. Dalton’s footman called for their car, which slid up 
silently to the edge of the pavement. Dalton walked on a 
few paces until they had gone and the door was shut. Then 
he let himself in with his key. 

“How many people still here?” he asked the footman. 

“Two couples, sir. Admiral and Mrs. Harper, and Mr. 
and Mrs. Vernon D’Arcy. Oh, yes, sir, and young Mr. 
Brockham.” 


The Wells of Truth 219 


“Again?” said Dalton. 

pn aE SST he 

The young footman permitted himself a cautious smile. 
Young Mr. Brockham had been a frequent visitor of late— 
almost like one of the family. They had discussed the sig- 
nificance of that below stairs. Mrs. Higgs, the housekeeper, 
was of opinion that young Brockham was spoony with Miss 
Beatrice. There would be a red carpet down before long, 
she thought. The young footman did not communicate 
these opinions to his master, who went into his study at the 
end of the hall and stayed there until Admiral and Mrs. 
Harper and Mr. and Mrs. Vernon D’Arcy had departed 
from the house. 

Young Brockham was still upstairs, as Dalton, sitting 
deep in an armchair, staring into the red glow of his study 
fire, heard with ill-concealed annoyance when the footman 
tapped at his door—it was five minutes past twelve—and 
delivered a message. 

“The mistress would be glad if you would go up, sir.” 

“Ts young Mr. Brockham gone yet?” asked Dalton. 

“No, sir. He seemed to be on the point of leaving, but 
the mistress has asked him to wait until you see him.” 

The young footman chose his words carefully, and toned 
down the sense of drama with which he delivered them. 
They were in a high state of excitement upstairs—the mis- 
tress and Miss Beatrice and the young toff—laughing and 
talking nineteen to the dozen. Something had happened, 
that was certain. Miss Beatrice had a light in her eyes that 
was quite painful to a young footman who permitted him- 
self to adore her silently and respectfully, and was jealous 
of every young gentleman who had the cheek to make eyes 
at her. 

Dalton went upstairs slowly, and stood for a moment at 
the drawing room door. 

“Hullo!” he said, with a forced cheerfulness. ‘Getting 
late, isn’t it?” 

Mrs. Dalton stood by the piano, with her hand on 
Beatrice’s shoulder. She looked excited and happy and 
more than usually beautiful because of that excitement, per- 


220 Little Novels of Nowadays 


haps; though, anyhow, she was elegant and handsome in 
that gown of purple silk cut low so that her plump shoulders 
were fully revealed. When he had first married her she 
had had to go shabby and do her shopping in the cheap 
shops of Brixton! 

Beatrice, in her white silk frock, leaned her dark little 
head on her mother’s shoulder. Young Brockham stood 
in an awkward way, with a foolish smile, flicking an imagi- 
nary smut off his white waistcoat with emerald buttons. 

“Edward!” cried Mrs. Dalton, with a little catch in her 
voice, but a kind of triumph in its note. “We have won- 
derful news for you!” 

“Yes?” asked Dalton. He still smiled in that uneasy 
way, and his face had gone a shade paler. 

“Oh, father!” said Beatrice with a queer, excited laugh. 

“What’s happened?” asked Dalton. 

“The best thing in the world,” said Mrs. Dalton. “Harold 
and Beatrice have discovered they love each other. The 
dear boy has asked our precious girl to be his wife.” 

“Frightful cheek and all that,” said Harold Brockham, 
rather fatuously. “But with your permission, sir 4 

“Does your father know?” asked Dalton. 

He spoke gravely, though his eyes and lips smiled. That 
he was profoundly moved by the news could be seen by the 
way his hand trembled as he fumbled to get a cigarette 
out of his case. 

“Oh, the governor’s all right,” said Harold. “He’ll be 
tremendously bucked. Makes The Daily Record more of a 
family affair.” 

He laughed in his rather shrill, nervous way. A nice boy 
with curly hair and a rather girlish face, he had none of his 
father’s strength and brutality, though he had been in the 
cavalry in the Great War. 

“Yes; won’t that be splendid!” said Mrs. Dalton. “It 
will make us all feel so secure!” 

Poor lady! The word slipped out of her subconscious- 
ness. In her early days she had lived in fear because of 
the insecurity of her husband’s journalistic life. Out of a 
job at a moment’s notice! Sacked at the whim of editor or 


The Wells of Truth Zak 


proprietor! Even now, this house in Lowndes Square, her 
gowns, her sense of social leadership, were dependent on 
the good will of this boy’s father, Victor Brockham. 

“Dad,” cried Beatrice, laughing but reproachful, “you 
don’t seem very pleased. Where’s your paternal bless- 
ing?” 

She came over and took him by the shoulders and gave 
him a little shake. | 

“My dear, my dear,” he said, kissing her, “I only want 
your happiness.” 

They had been good comrades. She meant more to him 
than his wife, who had become rather ambitious and worldly 
of late. He had dreaded the time when some young ass 
would beguile his daughter away. And now, of all boys, 
she had chosen young Brockham, the son of his slave 
driver, the son of the man who had killed his soul, the son 
of the man who was leading England to ruin! 

He turned to the boy and grabbed his arm with a des- 
perate atempt at jocularity. 

“So you would steal my little one from me, would you? 
I’m not giving a word of consent until I hear your father’s 
views on the subject.” 

“Oh, that’s all right, sir,” said the boy. “The governor 
can tyobject.”” 

“In any case,” said Beatrice, audaciously, “parents have 
no right to interfere nowadays. We’re not in the Middle 
Hecsw myow, then; Harold, it’s time yot lett.” 

She took the boy’s hand and ran out of the room with 
him. ra 

For a moment or two there was silence between husband 
and wife. They listened to the laughter of the boy and 
the girl going down the stairs. : 

“My dear,” said Mrs. Dalton, “it’s a great thing for all 
of us. It will consolidate your position. You will become 
a very great power in the land.” 

Dalton had been shifting a Dresden-china shepherdess on 
the mantelpiece. He turned round now sharply, with a look 
of anguish. 

“T would rather Beatrice were dead than marry the son 


222 Little Novels of Nowadays 


of that unspeakable blackguard. It shan’t happen! I'll re- 
sign my position, as Frank has done!” 

Mrs. Dalton had risen from her chair. The colour ebbed 
out of her face. 

“Frank! Has he given up The Record?” 

“Yes; and he’s right. He’s clean again!” 

Mrs. Dalton’s hands went to her throat with its necklace 
of jewels. 

“My dear! What on earth do you mean?” 

Dalton faced her with a look of sullen determination. 

“Tf you hadn’t been so busy ‘as a social climber you’d 
understand. Haven’t you seen what agony I’ve been endur- 
ing for the last ten years, because of that man’s insolence, 
his intolerable brutality? Don’t you know what humiliations 
he has put upon me—indignities, shamefulness? This house 
of ours, this fine furniture, your gowns and pearls and 
social show—by heaven, all paid for by my degradation, the 
filth I have to print at that man’s bidding, the lies I have 
to broadcast to earn his wage, the monstrous dishonesty of 
my job, which debauches public opinion and poisons the 
very wells of truth. I’m sick of it! Ill get free of it, and 
honest again, even if we have to starve. Would to God 
we were back in Brixton, on three pounds ten a week!” 

Mrs. Dalton was white to the lips, and very angry. 

“Are you going mad, or something? Brixton! I shudder 
at the old horror of it!” 

She shuddered now, with a real spasm of horror in her 
white shoulders. Then she stretched out her hands to her 
husband in a pleading way. 

“Edward! You’re not going to spoil everything—at our 
time of life? Bee’s happiness—mine!” 

Dalton groaned and said, “Haven’t I some claim to hap- 
piness ?” 

He repeated the word happiness with a harsh laugh, as 
though it were damnable irony, and then went out of the 
drawing-room and up to his bedroom before his daughter 
came back from a lover’s farewell in the hall. 

The next day was Saturday—a journalist’s holiday. He 
was in the habit of driving down to Surrey for a game of 


The Wells of Truth 223 


golf, and his car came to the door at the usual time. But 
he told the footman that he did not want his clubs. 

Mrs. Dalton came into the hall as he was putting on his 
coat. 

“T hope you'll have a good game, dear,” she said rather 
timidly, giving a sharp glance at his face to see what mood 
he was in after his strange and terrible speech last night. 

“I’m not playing golf this afternoon,” he said quietly. 
“T’m going to see Brockham.” 

She drew a sharp breath, and her eyes searched his face 
again. She could not say much before the footman. 

“You won’t say anything—rash? You'll think of Beatrice 
and her happiness ?”’ 

“Oh, I shan’t be rash,” he answered with an attempt at 
light-heartedness. 

He raised his eyes and looked at her for the first time 
since she had spoken to him, and saw that she was deeply 
anxious, with a very pitiful and pleading look. A remem- 
brance of their early struggle together, the rough time he 
had given her in those days—poor child—stirred his com- 
passion. He took her hand and kissed it, and was startled 
at its coldness. 

“TI shan’t be home late,” he said. 

On the way down to Dorking, where Brockham lived, he 
opened both the windows of the car and let the breeze blow 
into his face and ruffle the hair—getting grey and thin— 
about his forehead. He was tempted to tell Brockham 
some of the very things that Frank had got off his chest 
last night. , 

And yet, had he the right to plunge his wife into poverty 
again ?—for that was what it would mean. 

He ran over his chances in Fleet Street. Heneage? No, 
nothing doing on his papers. Not a ghost of a chance of 
any big job anywhere. Perhaps news editor somewhere, on 
half his present salary. That would mean leaving Lowndes 
Square. 

And what about Beatrice? It would wreck her engage- 
ment and break the child’s heart. Those violent words to 
his wife could not be put into action without cruelty to 


4 


224 Little Novels of Nowadays 


others. Was his honesty, his sense of political truth, to 
be paid for by the misery of his family? Wasn’t all life 
a compromise, as he had told Frank? Even The Record 
presented only a point of view. Nobody took its word as 
the infallible truth. It was pleading from a brief, one side 
of the case; not always the evil side. Anyhow, he was 
boiling up for a row with Brockham. He would permit 
himself that luxury without going too far. 

Brockham lived in an old English Manor house, a mile or 
so beyond Dorking. It used to belong to the Hepworths, 
in whose family it had been for centuries, before they were 
ruined by the war. They had lived first in a little old 
castle, of which some walls and heaps of brickwork still 
remained beyond the avenue of beeches, before building 
themselves, in Tudor times, the half-timbered house that 
had been modernised in the eighteenth century, and partly 
rebuilt twenty years before the European war. 

Brockham, who didn’t know his own grandfather, and 
had begun life as a printer’s devil somewhere in Peckham, 
was now the lord of the manor, and concocted his financial 
stunts under these old roofs that had given shelter to some 
of the fairest and noblest of English blood. Well, that 
wouldn’t have been against him if he’d had any nobility 
of his own. But he hadn’t—discernible to the human eye. 

Dalton walked into the great hall, hung with trophies that 
had belonged to the Hepworths, and asked one of the men- 
servants if Mr. Brockham was disengaged. 

“There’s a gentleman with him in the smoking room, sir.” 

Long training, no doubt, prevented him from naming the 
gentleman. But Dalton stared at a hat, stick and gloves 
laid on the hall table, and knew their owner. Yes, that hat 
—a hard black bowler with a broad curly brim—and that 
ebony stick with an ivory handle belonged to Pinney. He 
saw them every night in The Record office.. They seemed 
to express in a subtle way something of Pinney’s fat and 
gross personality. What was he doing here? Dalton had a 
quick stab of suspicion. What intrigue? 

‘It's: Mri-Pinney,’ he told the man; jie) Uy oo via 
needn’t bother to announce me.” 


The Wells of Truth 225 


“Very good, sir.” 

The man had seen Dalton many times before in this 
house, and knew his place and power on The Record. 

Dalton went to the smoking room at the end of the hall, 
and after a tap at the door walked in. 

Brockham’s bulky body was deep in a big chair, with one 
leg over its arm. A litter of papers lay on the floor by his 
side. His bald head caught the light from the window and 
glistened as though highly greased. His big, flabby face, 
with heavily puffed eyes behind American glasses, was 
turned sideways so that he could see Pinney standing by 
the fireside, suave, deferential, like a lackey getting his 
orders. 

“More ginger, that’s what we want! We’ve been as mushy 
as oatmeal porridge. That fellow Dalton is 

“Good afternoon,” said Dalton. His sudden appearance 
certainly startled the two men. 

Pinney reddened uncomfortably and coughed as though 
his throat tickled before saying, “Hallo, old man!’ with 
attempted geniality. 

Brockham took his leg down from the arm of the chair, 
sat up, and took off his tortoise shells. 

“Didn’t expect you, Dalton. Just been talking about you.” 

He was not betrayed into nervousness, even for the frac- 
tion of a second. 

“Pleasantly, no doubt,” said Dalton. 

“That’s as may be.” 

Brockham waved his hand to Pinney with a gesture of 
dismissal. 

“You can go, Pinney. Ill send you the contract.” 

“T’m extremely obliged,’ said Pinney. “I can hardly 
say 39 

He glanced at Dalton with watery, uneasy eyes and a 
guilty look. 

“Don’t say anything,’ 
counts.” 

Pinney bowed, coughed, said “Good afternoon, sir,” to 
Brockham, “Good afternoon, old man,” to Dalton, and left 
the room. 


5] 


said Brockham. “It’s work that 


226 Little Novels of Nowadays 


Brockham rose slowly from his chair and faced Dalton. 

“What’s this about my son and your girl—this silly non- 
sense ?” 

“T agree,” said Dalton icily. “The silliest nonsense.” 

“T won’t permit it for an instant!” Brockham’s puffed 
eyes had a red stab of fire in their depths. “What the 
deuce d’you mean by getting my son to your house and 
throwing him in the way of your girl?” 

Dalton had for a moment a murderous desire. This man 
was a low blackguard, a most insolent hog. 

“Your son invited himself to my house. It gave me no 
pleasure to see him. I should be sorry to have him as my 
son-in-law.” 

“You won't!” said Brockham sullenly. “He’s going to 
marry Lady Margery Woodward, or go to the devil as far 
as tim concerneds, 

“Perhaps it’s the same thing, anyhow,” said Dalton, who 
remembered the lady’s reputation. 

Brockham breathed heavily and glared at Dalton like an 
enraged bear, but something in Dalton’s eyes checked his 
explosion of wrath. He spoke less brutally. 

“The things I’ve done for that boy of mine! Pampered 
him, spent money like water on him, never refused him any 
fancy or freak, agonised over him when the war was on. 
Now he wants to marry. Well, I won’t give my consent, 
and that’s flat, Dalton.” 

Dalton remembered this man’s almost hysterical anxiety 
about his son during the war. Every casualty list made his 
flesh creep. Twice a night at least he would ring up the 
office and say, “Any news about Harold’s brigade?” as 
though all the rest of the massacre meant nothing to him, 
provided his boy was safe. Pitiable! Rather disgusting, 
Dalton had thought. Now he was going to smash the boy’s 
hopes of happiness and coerce him into a marriage with a 
vile woman of exalted rank. 

“For my part,” said Dalton with deadly calm, “I would 
rather my daughter married a chimney sweep than your 
son. Not that I object to the boy, who seems a nice fellow.” 


The Wells of Truth D224 


“Then what’s your objection?” growled Brockham. “IT 
don’t follow your argument. Some of your damned sar- 
casm, I suppose. There’s another reason why it’s impos- 
sible.” 

He hesitated for a moment, and then assumed his usual 
manner of the bully. Dalton was familiar with that expres- 
sion of brutal resolution. He had seen many a poor devil 
quail under it when dismissed from his job. 

“T’ve unpleasant news for you, Dalton. It’s best to tell 
you without flummery. I’ve been displeased with your work 
lately. You seem to have lost grip. You’ve been trying to 
play the idealist and friend-of-humanity stunt. The paper 
hasn’t got any red blood in it, any editorial thrust. It’s all 
pap! Anyhow, that’s my view, and I’m the one who pays. 
I’ve made Pinney managing editor. You can take a year’s 
salary—I’m not mean—and get out of my show.” 

Dalton had a queer sense of surprise that he was not 
more surprised. He searched in his mind for a sense of 
shock and couldn’t feel it. Pinney’s hat in the hall had told 
him before he entered this room. Strange! He was a 
ruined man and yet perfectly cheerful about it. Something 
seemed to have lifted from him, an enormous weight, all the 
burden that had laid as heavy on him as an undiscovered 
crime. He was free again, as free as his son Frank! This 
big fat hunk of corruption was no longer his slave driver, 
his bully, his soul destroyer. There was no anger in Dalton 
now, only a sardonic amusement. 

“Pinney will make a good editor,” he said. “AlII-the- 
Loni biniey. 

“Well, I’m glad you take it like that. I will say I like a 
man who accepts a knock without whimpering.” 

Dalton shrugged his shoulders. 

“It’s not a knock; it’s a liberation.” 

For a moment he had the idea of letting this man hear 
his contempt, his pent-up hatred. No, what was the use? 
Only a waste of nervous force. 

He refused a cigar and a whisky, and picked up his hat 
and gloves. 


228 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“When does Pinney take over?” he asked. 

“To-morrow night. I like these changes to be made 
quickly. That’s my method, as you know.” 

“T know !” 

Dalton went to the door, refusing to see Brockham’s 
flabby hand. His farewell words to this man whose orders 
he had fulfilled so long were not friendly, but not vio- 
lent. 

“Your son will no longer be received at my house, and I 
shan’t be a regular subscriber to The Record.” 

He went out of the room with a quick glance at the tall, 
heavy figure of Brockham, standing before his fireside, with 
his fat forefinger stuck into his waistcoat pocket over his 
enormous stomach. Before the door closed on him he heard 
the growling words of “That won’t hurt!” 

He did not drive straight home. After reaching London 
he told his man to take him to the office. He had many 
private papers to collect before Pinney took over, as well 
as photographs and little personal things in that room where 
he had lived most of his days for ten years. 

Halfway up Fleet Street he stopped the car and hailed a 
newspaper boy. The light from a street lamp fell on the 
contents bill, and the words caused him something like a 
physical shock: 


GRAVE NEws|! 
IS IT WAR? 
RESERVISTS TO BE CALLED UP 


He struck a match in his closed car—the electric light 
did not work—and read five or six blurred lines in the 
Stop me tess| 


“Germany and Russia attack Poland. French Prime Min- 
ister in interview says, “Grave situation. Six classes will 
be called to colours.’ On inquiry at Downing Street official 
confirms possibility of impending war. May be necessary 
to call up army reserves. Advises public to remain calm, 
pending further information.” 


The Wells of Truth 229 


Dalton laughed harshly in his car. It looked as though 
the forces he had been watching for three years past had 
moved to the great collision. The smouldering flames had 
broken through the crust of false security. 

If this were true, Europe would be a blazing furnace 
again, into which youth would be hurled by the leaders who 
had betrayed it—for the second time—by their ignorance, 
their lies, their fanning up of passion, their incurable cor- 
ruption. Brockham was one of them, and Dalton, his bond 
slave, was another. 

The office was deserted on this Saturday night. Only 
the cleaners and the firemen were about; the firemen who 
could never put out that fire in the heart of civilisation. 

Dalton turned on the lights in his room. A tape machine 
in the corner was busy in its uncanny way, unwinding strips 
of paper on which came the messages of fate. He read 
one of them: 


“Later inquiries suggest many officers on reserve already 
notified hold themselves in readiness. Great excitement in 
London clubs.” 


That meant that Frank would be called up. He would 
not long enjoy his liberty in that cottage at Leatherhead. 
Young Brockham, too! All those who had escaped “the 
war to end war.” 

For an hour Dalton sat at his desk in the lonely room, 
staring at the brass inkpot whose shining goblet had been 
like a crystal in which he had seen these forces gathering. 

The telephone bell rang, and mechanically he raised the 
receiver. It was Brockham who spoke in an apoplectic 
voice. 

“That you, Dalton? My God, this news! It can’t be 
true! I refuse to believe it! Harold tells me he’s had a 
wire from the War Office.” 

The man was whimpering. Brockham, who said that he 
liked a man to take a knock without a whimper ! 

“My boy in another war! No, I couldn’t bear it! We’ve 
got to stop it, Dalton—at all costs!” : 


230 Little Novels of Nowadays 


Dalton laughed down the telephone. 

“It’s your’ war, Brockham. You asked for it. You 
helped to make it. I hope you'll like it!’ 

Brockham was breathing hard down the telephone. The 
bully in his soul had collapsed into quaking cowardice, 
snivelling fear. 

“Dalton! For the love of God! We’ve got to rally 
England against those madmen! Write a leader telling 
them to smash the government to hell if it dares to call for 
any more sacrifice of blood and treasure! Throw the whole 
weight of The Record against this homicidal mania!” 

Dalton answered him again with that laugh in his throat. 

“You forget, Brockham. Pinney is your editor now. I’m 
no longer your paid man, thank God!” 

“Wash all that out!” Brockham’s deep voice whimpered 
again. “Pinney’s contract is unsigned. He’s no damn good 
for this crisis. The mind of a drill sergeant. We want 
fire, idealism, spirituality—your touch, Dalton!” 

Dalton grinned savagely at the celluloid mouthpiece. Fear 
had put this man at his mercy—grovelling fear. With 
cold, sarcastic words he dictated to him. He was willing to 
resume his position on different conditions. Utterly dif- 
ferent! 

“TI shall want a new contract Monday morning; absolute 
editorial control; no right of interference in the policy of 
the paper by you or any of your gang, as long as the con- 
tract runs—and that will be for ten years. ... Yes, I said 
ten years. Otherwise I walk out of this office in five min- 
utes), YOu agrees” 

Brockham gasped and gurgled at his end of the telephone. 
He pleaded and almost wept for less severity. 

“Four minutes have gone,” said Dalton. “You agree?” 

Brockham agreed on the tick of the fifth minute. Dalton 
was the only man who could change the policy of the paper 
overnight. It would have a terrific effect in England. It 
might save his son’s life. 

“Another thing,” said Dalton: “This afternoon I said I’d 
rather my daughter married a chimney sweep than your 
son. That’s true! But if she likes the boy, it’s her affair 


The Wells of Truth eek 


and his. Will you leave it to them if I do my best to keep 
the country out of war? ... That’s settled then, when I 
have it in writing.” 

He thrust the receiver down, and, going to the window, 
opened it and listened to the murmurous noise of London 
as it came up from the streets, and looked at the glow of 
its myriad lights, touching the high fleecy clouds above Fleet 
Street and its alleys. 

“Pray God it’s not too late!” said: Dalton, and then he 
gave a loud, harsh laugh because of his freedom to tell the 
truth at last, and the weakness of one man in the presence 
of world forces stirring towards conflict. 

He had his new contract on Monday morning. But there 
was no war just then, after all. The Stop Press news was 
rather premature. 


IX: A GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL 


ii was not a pleasant day in Hyacinth Grove, Fulham, 
and under a dark sky, or when rain is beating down on 
the refuse in its gutters—cabbage stalks, omnibus tickets, 
bits of newspaper which wrapped up the fish and chips of 
last night’s revellers at the corner coffee-stall—Hyacinth 
Grove is one of the most unattractive streets in London. It 
may be mentioned to those who are unacquainted with this 
tributary of the Fulham Road that hyacinths do not grow 
in its pavement, and that there is no grove under whose 
verdant foliage lovers wander hand in hand. ‘There are, 
however, several lamp-posts once painted white, if one may 
believe local tradition. 

Sir Timothy Brandon, tenth baronet of Castle Brandon, 
County Wexford, Ireland, destroyed by Sinn Feiners in the 
troubles of -1917, and recently of Number Two, Hyacinth 
Grove, regarded the state of the weather through the broken 
window-panes of his bed sitting-room. They had been 
broken a week before, by a group of boys playing the 
ancient game of “rounders” with a hard ball. It was obvi- 
ously useless to have them mended, because the game was 
played daily after school hours. In any case, Sir Timothy 
Brandon, being a sportsman himself—captain of the Eton 
eleven and cricket blue at Oxford, some thirty and odd 
. years ago in time, but yesterday in memory—was not the 
man to protest against a ball game. 

But the sight of the rain pattering against the opposite 
chimney pots annoyed him as much as it was possible ever 
to annoy a singularly good-tempered man. ‘He uttered a 
mild oath with a slight Irish accent, which still clung to 
his tongue in spite of his English upbringing, and then care- 
fully examined a pair of boots which he had just polished 
with a velvet pad. The examination was unsatisfactory. 
One sole was badly cracked and by no means weather-proof. 

232 


A Gentleman of the Old School Oo 


He heaved a deep sigh as he placed them back on the 
window-sill which served as his dressing table. 

“Growing old, my friends, like myself!’ he said; and 
then, as though reminded for the first time this morning of 
an important event in his life, spoke aloud again, which was 
a recent habit of his. 

“My birthday, good Lord, and fifty-five to-day!” 

He stood in front of a mirror, a little old Chippendale 
mirror, which he had saved with a writing desk of the same 
period, three Sheraton chairs, and a few other odds and 
ends from the sale of his belongings in his little flat in Duke 
Street, when he had had to move down a step, owing to the 
confounded pinch of poverty. Since then he had moved 
down other steps—from Duke Street to West Kensington— 
thence to a boarding-house in King’s Road, Chelsea (far 
too expensive on his dwindling capital!), and now to 
Hyacinth Grove. 

“Fifty-five to-day, Tim!” 

The mirror did not lie to him. His face had become more 
grey and gaunt since that day a year ago. There was a 
streak of perfectly white hair above his forehead, though 
the rest of it was—well—not worse than grey in a dim 
light. His pointed beard which he trimmed so carefully, 
and his moustache which he brushed up in the old debonair 
style, were wearing rather thin since he had given up his 
favourite and infallible lotion for the sake of economy. 
There were new little wrinkles about his eyes, though they 
were still blue and undimmed, and—yes—with a smile in 
them still, thank heaven! 

He smiled rather sombrely at this revelation of himself, 
and spoke an old Latin tag which he still remembered from 
his school-days: 

“Quantum mutatus ab illo!?’—How changed from that 
which he was! 

They had called him Beauty Brandon in those days, when 
he was a clean-shaven fellow with the sky in his eyes and 
a delicate taste in fancy socks. The name had followed him 
to India, through the South African War, even to the fruit 
farm on which he had lost a lot of money in California. 


234 Little Novels of Nowadays 


Well, he was no longer Beauty Brandon, but a haggard 
fellow, in the sere and yellow leaf, very much the worse 
for wear. 

No one had remembered his birthday. Not even Helen, 
who had been so faithful in remembrance, in wifehood and 
widowhood, after chucking him a quarter of a century ago 
—or more than that—for Will Fortescue. Perhaps she had 
written to the club? Yes, he remembered now that he had 
hidden this last address from her, as he had hidden it from 
all his friends. Number Two, Hyacinth Grove, Fulham! 
Rather low-down for Sir Timothy Brandon, tenth baronet! 

He was in his underclothing, sadly in need of patching and 
darning. Perhaps he could get Jenny to do that, if he dared 
let her into the secret of his hidden rags. By extreme care 
and a real art of self-valeting, he was still able to present a 
respectable appearance to the outer world, though he was 
approaching the last phase of his scanty wardrobe. He 
pulled out from beneath the mattress of his narrow bed a 
pair of trousers which he had successfully pressed by sleep- 
ing on them. The crease was admirable, and after he had 
cut off a few loose threads where his boots had frayed 
them, they would still do credit to St. James’s Street. He 
was bound to admit that, even in the grey light which came 
through his broken window-panes, there was no disguising 
the shiny elbows of his well-cut morning coat. Still, origi- 
nally it had been a masterpiece of the best tailor in Conduit 
Street, and in the club, which was not garishly lighted, it 
not only passed, but was an object of admiration. Only 
yesterday that old buck, General Brandingham, had growled 
a compliment which was very pleasing, and devilish amus- 
ing, to Brandon’s soul. 

“You're always so confoundedly well-dressed, Brandon. 
Can’t think how you do it, in these hard times. Suppose 
you made a pot of money on that fruit farm of yours in 
California ?” 

It was still a tradition in the club that he was worth a 
bit, and he was vain enough to keep the truth from them. 
Anyhow, he couldn’t tell them very well that he slept on his 
trousers, and that he went without lunch not because of in- 


A Gentleman of the Old School 235 


digestion, but for reasons of economy, and that unless he 
could get an invitation to dinner—which was rare now be- 
cause all his friends had been so damnably hit by war taxa- 
tion—he slunk into a cheap eating-house in the Fulham 
Road, hoping to heaven no one would see him. Even then 
he had to be very careful in his choice from the bill of 
fare lest he should go beyond the ninepenny mark which 
was all he could afford. They wouldn’t believe him if he 
told them that. They would think old Beauty Brandon was 
pulling their legs in his funny old way—“joshing,” as they 
called it in California. They would roar with laughter. 

Sir Timothy Brandon laughed aloud in his bed sitting- 
room at these thoughts of his, while he dressed himself and 
brushed the last speck of dust off his black morning coat. 
Then he coughed a good deal, until he had to sit on the 
side of his bed, rather exhausted. It was due to these boots 
of his, that fellow with the crack in the sole. Three nights 
ago he had walked home in the rain from Belgrave Square, 
after the reception at Lady Linton’s—a long step to Hya- 
cinth Grove, Fulham—and had caught the most infernal 
cold. He hadn’t eaten much that day, either, counting on 
getting some food at Lady Linton’s, but the stupid woman 
had offered her guests nothing but coffee, champagne cup, 
iced lemonade, and some light refreshments which he had 
been unable to obtain, not being one of the “thrusters.” He 
had felt quite faint on the way home, and the influenza 
microbes had seized their chance... . 

There was a tap at the door, and Sir Timothy, stifling 
his cough, called “Come in!” in his cheery voice. 

It was Jenny with his breakfast. Little Jenny, the nine- 
teen-year-old niece of Mrs. Wembley, his landlady, and the 
prettiest thing in Hyacinth Grove, Fulham, though her blue 
serge frock was grease-stained, and her shoes more down 
at heel than Sir Timothy’s boots. A pale gleam of light 
through the cracked window-panes touched her hair as she 
came in, revealing the strain of gold in its brown coil. She 
reminded Sir Timothy—who had been a patron of art in 
his younger days—of a water-colour sketch by Rossetti 
which he had bought at Christie’s—a girl’s face, thin, with 


236 Little Novels of Nowadays 


high cheek-bones touched with red, and big grey-blue eyes 
and a bow-shaped mouth. ... 

“The kipper’s a bit niffy,” she said, putting a tray on the 
table and lifting a tin dish cover. 

“Niffy, eh? You can’t mean it, my dear? I paid four- 
pence for it in the Fulham Road last night.” 

“Fourpence? Then they cheated you, that’s all. Saw you 
was a toff. I never pay no more than threepence at the 
little shop in Tod’s Alley.” 

“Ts that so?” Sir Timothy was startled and distressed. 
“My dear child, why didn’t you tell me before? You know 
I rely on your wonderful knowledge of life in this neigh- 
bourhood. I shall be ruined, Jenny, if you don’t help me.” 

Jenny giggled in a shy, childish way. 

“You know you’re always kidding me!” 

“Not at all,” said Sir Timothy. “I’ve the greatest admi- 
ration and respect for you, Jenny. You can cook a kipper 
better than any one I know.” 

Jenny blushed deeply at this compliment, but she passed 
it off with scornful words. 

“KKippers! They’re easy. Besides, your friends wouldn’t 
want to cook no kippers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they 
don’t have mutton chops for breakfast, and all sorts of 
grand things, served up by butlers and footmen, waiting 
behind their chairs and all that. Like Lady Linton, f’r 
instance. Oh, I know all about her.” 

She gave a shrewd little glance at Sir Timothy Brandon, 
who was busy with the bones of his kipper. 

“Lady Linton? What do you know about her?” 

Sir Timothy was frankly startled—even a little perturbed. 
Between Hyacinth Grove and Belgrave Square there was a 
great gulf, crossed by a little bridge which he had con- 
structed with most elaborate secrecy. 

“Tt’s all in the papers,’ said Jenny, though she said 
“pipers.” “TI read it in the one what wrapped up aunty’s 
margarine.” 

She folded her hands in front of her rather grubby apron, 
and recited something she had learnt by heart. It was a 
paragraph from the paper. 


A Gentleman of the Old School ZOo7 


“Lady Linton of Linton held a reception last night at her 
house in Belgrave Square. It was a very brilliant affair, 
bringing back the memory of pre-war days, by the splen- 
dour of the floral decorations, the glittering orders of the 
guests, and the beauty of the ladies’ dresses. Among those 
present were the Duke and Duchess of Rutland, the Duke 
and Duchess of Somerset, the Earl of Beauchamp, the 
Countess of Airlie, Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson, 
and”—she laid great stress on that and—‘“Sir Timothy 
Brandon, of Castle Brandon, County Wexford, whose an- 
cestral home was recently destroyed by the Irish rebels.” 

It was unfortunate that Jenny dropped all her aspirates 
and pronounced the word “duke” as “dook.” 

“Quite right,” said Sir Timothy, “only journalists are 
somewhat inaccurate in the use of that word ‘recently.’ ” 

Jenny gazed at him with a kind of wonderment. 

“Fancy you living in a “ole like this, and going to them 
grand places, and then coming back again. It do seem a 
shime.” 

“My dear Jenny, it’s a little hard sometimes, I admit, but 
not altogether unamusing, if one keeps a sense of humour.” 

Sir Timothy poured himself out another cup of coffee 
essence and drank it delicately, as though it had the fragrance 
of the finest mocha. 

“Oh, sir,’”’ said Jenny, “do tell me about the ladies’ dresses. 
Wasn’t they beautiful?” 

“Not bad,” said Sir Timothy. “A pretty sight when the 
younger girls gathered together like a flock of birds. But 
I tell you what, Jenny, you’d look just as good as some of 
them, and much better than most, if you changed that old 
blue dress of yours for their white frocks. ’Pon my soul, you 
would!” 

“Gord!” said Jenny, in a kind of whisper. “Ow I would 
love to! Even to take a peep at them through the area rail- 
ings.” 

Quite suddenly, and greatly to the alarm of Sir Timothy 
Brandon, the girl put her apron up to her eyes and burst into 
tears. 

“My dear child! My dear Jenny! What’s the matter?” 


238 Little Novels of Nowadays 


It seemed that there was a great deal the matter with this 
child of Hyacinth Grove, Fulham, as she blurted out in a 
sobbing way. Her aunt was unkind to her and was always 
nagging because she didn’t work hard enough, though she 
tried ever so hard. And her uncle, who was out of work, 
had been drunk again last night, and threatened to cut her 
throat, because he said her neck was too white for an honest 
girl. And the boy she’d been walking out with—Fred Chant, 
the grocer’s young man—had “chucked” her because she 
had holes in her stockings and wasn’t fit to be seen with him 
down the Fulham Road. She wished she was dead, she did! 

Sir Timothy Brandon, tenth baronet, was as much con- 
cerned with the distress of this girl of Hyacinth Grove as 
though she had been one of those ladies who had come to 
him in time of trouble in that other world of his. That was 
his weakness. It was partly the reason of his poverty, for 
he had been foolish in generosity, even when he could ill 
afford it, to maiden aunts, blackmailing women who had 
traded on his tenderness, poor relations who had now for- 
gotten him, the wives and widows of old comrades. 

He patted Jenny’s hand and soothed her as though she had 
been a small child. 

“Hush, my dear! It’s very wrong of your aunt, I must 
say! A brave little worker like you! And that uncle of 
yours—drunk again? That’s dreadful. Threatened you, 
did he? Well, I'll talk to him. And that boy of yours— 
deserts you because you have holes in your stockings! The 
infernal young scoundrel! We'll teach him a lesson, Jenny. 
By Jove, we will! You shall go and buy yourself a new 
dress and new stockings—all silk, my dear—and the pretti- 
est hat in the Fulham Road, and you and I will walk out 
together and flaunt your finery in the face of that impudent 
young monkey. How’s that for a good idea?” 

It was such a wonderful idea that it made Jenny laugh 
through her tears. She thought Sir Timothy was joking at 
first, and then went quite red and afterwards quite pale, 
when he pulled out his pocket-book and counted out three 
pounds in paper money—all ten-shilling notes—and spoke 


A Gentleman of the Old School 239 


to her in his wonderful way, as though she were a great 
lady. 

“Do me the favour of taking those, my dear. It will give 
me the greatest happiness to see you in some pretty things. 
You've been very good to me since I’ve been here.” 

Jenny pushed the bits of paper back to him across the 
table. 

“Oh, Gord, sir! I couldn’t think of tiking it. And you so 
pore you don’t get enough to eat, and looking thinner and 
thinner every day!” 

“My dear child, I assure you I'll be vastly disappointed if 
you refuse. It’s my birthday to-day. Now don’t deprive 
me of this little pleasure !” . 

She stared at him out of her big blue-grey eyes with a kind 
of animal devotion, and then cried again and made his hand 
wet by dropping her face on it and kissing it. 

“T’d work my ’ands to the bone for you!” she sobbed. 

Her aunt’s voice called from the kitchen. 

“Jenny! Jenny! ... Where is that blarsted girl?” 

“Mop your eyes, my dear,” said Sir Timothy. “There’s 
your aunt calling.” He squeezed the bits of paper into her 
thin, hot hand, and patted her on the shoulder. 

“Don’t forget! .. . We'll walk down the Fulham Road 
when you’ve bought those things.” 

Then he led her to the door and opened it for her, as 
though she had been a duchess. 

A little later he sauntered out of Number Two Hyacinth 
Grove, with his silk hat quite glossy (after a rub round with 
a paraffin rag) and tilted at a rakish angle. He carried a 
book under his arm, one of the last of his most precious 
treasures which had been disappearing one by one under 
stress of hard times. This was an original edition of 
Henry Esmond, his best-beloved novel, with Thackeray’s 
own signature on the fly-leaf, as he had written it for Sir 
Timothy’s father. He walked down the Fulham Road, and 
then turned up to South Kensington until he came to a 
bookshop where he had been well known as a buyer in 
former days, and was now, alas! known as a seller. 


240 Little Novels of Nowadays 


The bookseller greeted him respectfully, for the sake of 
old custom. 

“Good morning, Sir Timothy! I hope I see you well? 
Any little treasure for me to-day?” 

“An old friend, Briggs. I hate to part with it. Look! 
The great man’s own signature.” 

The bookseller adjusted his spectacles and examined the 
fly-leaf of Henry Esmond and that neat handwriting of its 
author, while Sir Timothy covered the business side of the 
visit by literary chit-chat. 

“William Makepeace Thackeray. Ah! our modern novel- 
ists despise him as an old fogey, Briggs. He could write 
’em all off their heads. He’d scorn their vulgarities and 
beastliness, their abominable indecency. He knew the ugly 
secrets of life—who doesn’t?—and dealt with them truly, 
but always like a gentleman, Briggs. Always like a gentle- 
man!” 

“That’s true, Sir Timothy. A gentleman of the old 
schoo!l—like yourself, if I may be so bold as to say so.” 

Sir Timothy Brandon blushed at this compliment, like 
an elderly woman who is told that she is beautiful. It 
pleased him. It consoled him a little for the awful wrench of 
leaving his beloved book behind. 

Mr. Briggs was glad to give three pounds ten. It was a 
little more than the catalogue price, for the sake of the sig- 
nature. 

Sir Timothy had hoped for a better price than that, but he 
disliked haggling, and Briggs was fairly honest, he believed. 

“Tt’ll pay for Jenny’s finery,” he thought, “and next week’s 
rent to Mrs. Wembley.” 

From South Kensington he walked slowly towards St. 
James’s Street, by way of Knightsbridge and Piccadilly, 
quite a long walk for a man not feeling robust, and con- 
scious—imost damnably conscious—of that crack in the sole 
of his boot which had already made his sock damp again, so 
that he was seized with a spasm of coughing and had to stand 
for a while at Hyde Park Corner until he could get his 
breath again. It was then that Lady Linton passed in her 
open Daimler. Lady Violet, her youngest daughter, was 


A Gentleman of the Old School 241 


with her and pointed out Sir Timothy. Lady Linton turned 
with a gracious bow; and Vi, as he called her—he had nursed 
her on his knees in India—waved a friendly hand. Sir 
Timothy swept off his hat in his old grand style, a little out 
of fashion, perhaps, judging from the look of startled sur- 
prise followed by smiles and winks from two young fellows 
passing him. 

“Your ladyship’s most obliged and most obedient humble 
servant,” said one of them, with irony, but his words were 
not heard by Sir Timothy, who walked on with an extra 
touch of dignity. In spite of Hyacinth Grove, he was still 
known in his old world! 

There was another pleasure waiting for him at the club, 
that sanctuary in which he felt secure and unchanged among 
his old friends, in the old atmosphere. 

The hall porter, who had been there for thirty years, 
saluted him with a deferential smile. 

“Many happy returns of the day, sir! Begging your par- 
don, sir, for the liberty !” 

Sir Timothy was much touched. 

“Now, that is good of you to remember, Thompson! Yes. 
Fifty-five to-day. Getting old, like the rest of us, eh! 
How’s your good wife? Quite well, I hope?’ 

He liked these little human touches. Perhaps they came to 
him more than to others, because he took a friendly interest 
in those who served him. Anyhow, it was pleasant—charm- 
ing. 

“Several letters for you, sir.’ 

+ Ves, quiteca /packet:’’ 

In the smoking-room he sat down in one of the deep 
leather chairs and fingered them before opening a single one 
of them. It was pleasant to get the fragrance of kindly 
thoughts, the telepathy of old friendship, even through the 
closed envelopes. It was good to linger over handwriting 
well known or vaguely remembered, and to say: “Now who 
can that be?”’. . . There was a letter from Kitty Broadbent, 
with the Simla postmark. No need to guess at that—and old 
Bill Challoner had written from Biarritz. His writing was 
getting a bit shaky. . . . The old dog must be nearing sev- 


242 Little Novels of Nowadays 


enty! A little note with a coronet on the flap—that must be 
Evelyn, bless her dear heart! But where was Helen’s birth- 
day greeting? Surely, surely! ... Yes, there it was, in her 
little, fine, pointed hand, which had stabbed him to the heart 
twenty-five years ago—or was it a thousand?—when she 
had told him about her choice of Will Fortescue. She had 
been very kind since then. He was godfather to her first- 
born—young Will—and “Uncle Tim” to all of them. 

Sir Timothy peered round the side of his leather-backed 
chair. No, there was no one looking while he put the letter 
to his lips, and then laid it on his knee under all the others, 
as the one to read last because best of all. 

One letter was without a stamp or post-mark, and he 
opened it first, and was sorry he had done so, because it 
seemed to spoil things. It was a reminder from the club 
secretary that his annual subscription was one year and 
eleven months overdue. 

The committee was unwilling to press him, as an old and 
honoured member of the club, but under Rule Fourteen they 
were obliged to remind him that it would be necessary to 
post him unless he sent his cheque without further delay. 
Serious that, and most insulting! He had been a member for 
thirty years. Post him, by God! He would send a formal 
protest to the committee, with his cheque, and some very 
strong language. 

A cheque for forty pounds! It would make a terrible 
hole in that bank balance which had been dwindling for the 
last ten years, while he had been waiting for the stroke of 
luck which never seemed to come. 

Forty from three hundred? Two hundred and sixty. 
With great economy he might make that last a year. Perhaps 
a little longer. He mustn’t eat so much! He was a horrible 
gourmand, and it was absurd to eat so much at his time of 
life. A year, and perhaps a little more. After that, what? 
. . . God alone knew. Perhaps he might get a job. Secre- 
tary to a golf club-—that would suit him down to the ground, 
and other fellows seemed able to get hold of such things. 
He must study the advertisements in the daily papers. Any- 
thing rather than leave the club... . 


A Gentleman of the Old School 243 


He looked round the smoking-room, with its panelled walls 
and its bookshelves, its portraits of soldiers and statesmen, 
among whom were old comrades of his, its pillars of sham 
marble, rather cracked and stained after a hundred and fifty 
years of support to this club of good fellows whose ghosts 
haunted the rooms, surely. Old Sedley, the little old Field- 
Marshal, and Bingham, and Broadley, and Halliday of 
Wharton—the best of England and of Ireland, in the good 
old days. His ghost would be here, too, when he passed, in 
this leather chair perhaps, fingering letters from gracious 
women, old soldiers—and Helen. If he had to leave the 
club there would be nothing left in life—his old way of life 
—but only Hyacinth Grove, Fulham. 

Sir Timothy Brandon made a slight convulsive movement 
with his thin brown hands, and grasped the arms of the 
leather-backed chair as though resisting some force trying 
to pull him away out of this chair and out of the club. He 
would write that cheque for forty pounds before he went 
back to Hyacinth Grove. Forty from three hundred. 
mney ie! | 

Helen’s letter was kind. She called him “My dearest Tim,” 
and invited him to tea. She was glad his health was good, 
and she knew that on his fifty-fifth birthday his heart was as 
young as when they had first met at that dance in Calcutta. 
She felt older than that, though she was ten years younger. 
Sometimes she felt very old, because of the worry of things. 
Young Will was not doing well since the war. Didn’t seem 
to settle down to work. And Beatrice was wild and trouble- 
some. Sometimes she—Helen—was afraid... The chil- 
dren had no idea of money values, and she had to economise 
fearfully, owing to the awful taxes and high prices. She had 
given up her Daimler and only had a Ford now. “Come 
round and cheer me up, Tim! You’re always the same old 
optimist! . . . Your affectionate Helen.” 

Sir Timothy Brandon abstained from lunch, it was not 
really necessary at his age, and at four o’clock he walked 
through Kensington Gardens to the house in the Bayswater 
Road where Helen lived with her boys and girls. He was 
glad she could still afford to live there, in spite of high taxa- 


244 Little Novels of Nowadays 


tion. So many of his friends had had to leave their old 
houses, in spite of getting rid of servants and making great 
EcOnOMMES |, -4- 

When he kissed Helen’s hand in answer to her birthday 
greetings, he marvelled at the way she kept her beauty 
through the years, hardly changing. He told her so. 

“You're as beautiful as ever, my dear!” 

She laughed in that deep voice of hers which was the best 
music he knew, and put her hand up to her hair. 

“See how grey I’m getting, Tim! Look at old Time’s 
claws about my eyes!” 

“Nonsense,” he said. ‘Nonsense, my dear! I don’t see a 
grey hair, and your complexion is like a rose.” 

“Love is blind, Tim,” she said, and then blushed a little 
because of those words. But what was the good of pretend- . 
ing to Tim? She knew that he had loved her for more years 
than she liked to remember. Her true, old knightly friend. 

Beatrice came in, the baby girl, nineteen last birthday, and 
astoundingly like Helen as he had first seen her at that dance 
in Calcutta. 

“Hallo, Uncle Tim!” 

She kissed him on the cheek and laughed when he said: 
“You’re looking pale, you rogue! Too many dances.” 

“Yes,” said Helen, rather gravely. ‘Too much dissipa- 
tion in every way. I don’t know what’s the matter with the 
younger generation. These night-clubs ie 

“We mustn’t be too hard on youth,” said Sir Timothy. 
“T remember the time when your mother said the same thing, 
Helen !” 

Beatrice gave a shrill little laugh. 

“There you are, mother! What did I tell you?” 

But Helen’s eyes were still serious. 

“My mother would have died if I had taken the liberties 
which you do. Out half the night with strange young men 
—motor drives with objectionable people.” 

“Objectionable to you, mother! Not to me!” 

Beatrice’s laughter was a little harsh. 

“Well, we won’t argue, my dear,” said Helen. “Cut that 
birthday cake for Uncle Tim.” 


A Gentleman of the Old School 245 


Sir Timothy was persuaded to have two large slices of the 
birthday cake, and he did not refuse a third piece of bread 
and butter. 

“You keep your appetite, Tim!” said Helen. 

“T know it’s disgraceful! I eat like a plough boy. Sheer 
gluttony, Helen!” 

He could not conceal a shade of disappointment wher, 
after a pleasant hour, Helen told him that she had to dress 
for a dinner that Aight the Grigsbys. 

“You remember Arthur Grigsby, Tim?” 

Lord, yes, he remembered him in South Africa! 

““He’s become as fat as an alderman!” said Helen. 

Sir Timothy rose and kissed her hand again. 

“Well, I must be going, Helen.” 

He had hoped to stay to dinner, but, after all, this had 
been a birthday treat, this good hour with Helen. 

It was Beatrice who took Sir Timothy downstairs, to help 
him into his coat. 

“What’s your latest love affair?’ he asked teasingly. 
“How many hearts have you broken since I saw you 
last ?” 

To his surprise, Beatrice caught hold of his hand and 
pulled him towards the little room on the left of the hall. 

“Uncle Tim, I want to speak to you. Privately. I want 
to ask you something.” 

She shut the door when they were alone in the room 
together. Her face was pale, and she breathed a little jerkily, 
as though she had been running. 

“Uncle Tim! I’m in an awful fix. I want you to help 
Top 

“Nothing serious, I hope, my dear?” 

He was suddenly anxious. He hoped with all his heart that 
this little one had not fallen into any kind of real trouble. 
Helen had been worried about her, as he had seen with his 
watchful eyes. 

“T’ve been a fool,” said Beatrice. ‘‘An awful fool, Uncle 
Tim! It’s no good trying to explain. It was mostly card 
playing, and other things. I’ve been in rather a rotten set 
lately. Mother’s right about that. Of course I ought to 


246 Little Novels of Nowadays 


have known better, but one has to learn. One of the 
Mei.w oye thi 

She could not get any farther, but a wave of hot colour 
flamed into her face, and then she put her head against 
Sir Timothy’s shoulder and cried. 

“Some scoundrel has been worrying you, eh?” said Sir 
Timothy. “Tell me all about it, little one. I’m an old man 
and your mother’s best friend.” 

He spoke very gently, but his voice trembled. He was 
afraid that something very serious had happened to this 
pretty child. 

“T’ve been playing cards with him,” said Beatrice. “I 
owe him a frightful lot of money. He threatens me as 

“Threatens you, does he, the scoundrel? Let me know 
who he is, and I’ll stop his threats all right.” 

Sir Timothy’s hand grasped his umbrella as though itching 
to thrash the fellow. If there were anything that put rage 
into his heart, it was when a scoundrel threatened some 
defenceless girl. He saw murder then, though as a rule he 
hated violence. 

“Tf I don’t pay him the money,” said Beatrice, “he swears 
he’ll come to mother for it. Unless x 

Her voice trailed away into a kind of sob. 

“Unless what?” 

“Unless I give him something else instead of monev. Do 
you understand, Uncle Tim? . . . He wants me to go away 
with him. He’d let me off my debt if 

Sir Timothy spoke with horror in his voice. 

“Great God! I’d kill him like a rat if I once set eyes on 
him. How much money do you owe the villain?” 

“Tt’s not very much really, but I daren’t ask mother for it. 
You’re the one person in the world I could ask. You’ve 
. always been so sweet and kind. And you understand every- 
thing,) Uncle vlim,” 

“How much, my dear?” he asked again. 

“Eighty pounds,” said Beatrice, with a little gasp. 

“Eighty pounds!” 

That was a terrible sum of money for a child to lose at 
cards. What was society coming to, when it could tolerate 


A Gentleman of the Old School 247 


such things? What was youth thinking, after its heroic 
spirit in time of war? 

“My dear,” he said, “it’s a lot of money. Even if your 
mother were a rich woman, even if I were a rich man ey 

“Uncle Tim, if you could lend it to me, I’d try to pay back 
one day.” 

“I’m a poor man, little Beatrice,” he said, “a very poor 
man.” 

He could see that she did not believe him. What did this 
child know of money or poverty? He could see that she was 
disappointed—and afraid. She was afraid of what that 
man might do with this hold over her. A kind of despair 
was creeping into her eyes, this child’s eyes, this little flower 
of Helen’s beauty. Helen’s child! Helen’s child! 

Sir Timothy Brandon had a queer sensation of old age 
creeping over him. He felt old and tired because of the 
shock of this thing. Eighty pounds! A lot of money, and 
yet not too much to save Helen’s child from great tragedy 
—to save her honour, and Helen’s happiness. Of course, 
he could not hesitate a single instant. He would be a most 
unspeakable cad if he hesitated for a moment. 

“T’ll write a little cheque for you,” he said quietly. “But 
promise me you'll never see this man again, never let him 
say a word to you!” 

She promised, with her arms about his shoulders. She 
would never play cards again. She would get some work to 
do. She would thank God every night for Uncle Tim. 

He wrote the cheque for eighty pounds with his usual old 
flourish to the “‘y” of Timothy. If he’d had a bank balance 
of eighty thousand pounds, he could not have written his 
name to that cheque with a firmer touch. He blotted it 
carefully at the little desk in the corner of the room and, 
having folded it in half, gave it to Helen’s girl. 

“With an old man’s love,” he said, smiling in his gallant 
way. 

She whispered her thanks again and kissed his hand at the 
hall door . 

That night, after a dinner of sausages and mashed potatoes 
in a little eating-house off the Fulham Road, Sir Timothy 


248 Little Novels of Nowadays 


called for writing paper and ink. They charged him two- 
pence for it. His letter was to the secretary of his club. He 
regretted that owing to the grave international situation 
which had caused him certain losses, and the high taxation 
in England consequent upon the late war, he was compelled 
to resign his membership of the club to which he had had the 
honour to belong for so many years. He hoped that he 
would be remembered with good will, and that if he had ever 
offended any member by some idle word of persiflage, he 
would leave no rancour behind him. 

It was nine o’clock before he returned to Number Two 
Hyacinth Grove. In the street a drunken fellow was knock- 
ing his wife about, and when Sir Timothy intervened, they 
both turned upon him with foul oaths. Letting himself in 
with his latchkey at Number Two, he went upstairs quietly 
to his bed sitting-room, lest he should disturb Mrs. Wembley 
and her abominable husband. He had hardly lit the gas in 
his room, before there was a tap at the door, and Jenny 
came in with a brown-paper parcel. She was immensely 
excited. 

“Oh, sir! I’ve been and bought them things. Tl ’ardly 
dare to put ’em on, they’re so grand.” 

“Let me see them, my dear. My word, that’s something 
likeva: hat. 

sir Timothy spoke the truth. It was indeed something 
like a hat, but not much. 

“What about Fred Chant, now, eh?’ he asked. 

“Oh, ’e can go to the devil, as far as I’m concerned,” said 
Jenny, very haughtily. “A grocer’s boy! I don’t think!” 

She put her hand on Sir Timothy’s sleeve, rather timidly. 

“You'll come for a walk with me down the Fulham Road 
on Sunday? You ’aven’t forgotten what you said?” 

“Not a word of it! Rather! We’ll give them a treat down 
the Fulham Road. And we'll take a trip to the Zoo and feed 
the Polar bears.” 

“Oh, Lor’! cried Jenny, with shining eyes. ‘“That’ll be 
a fair treat. “You -are‘an old dear, 1 must say! Taneso 
’"appy, I could dance!” 

“I’m glad you’re happy,” said Sir Timothy. ‘Young 


P| 


A Gentleman of the Old School 249 


people ought to be happy. It’s their right, by God’s grace.” 

It was unfortunate that on the Sunday, Sir Timothy was 
too unwell to take Jenny to the Zoo, when she was all dressed 
up for him. He lay in bed that morning, and seemed to 
have a touch of fever. He didn’t know Jenny when she 
came into his room, but called her Helen. Afterwards he 
seemed to be worried because he could not get into his club, 
and imagined that somebody was pushing him away from 
the door. 

Jenny was frightened, and called Mrs. Wembley, who, 
after listening to his strange words a moment, said: “’E’s 
been drinking, the pore old blighter!’ But she became 
frightened too, when Sir Timothy coughed rather badly, and 

had a little blood on his lips. 

“Tt’s my belief the pore old devil will soon want a hunder- 
taker,” she remarked gloomily. “Gord knows if ’e’s enough 
to pay for ’is own funeral. You won’t see me paying, I can 
tell you!’ 

Jenny was crying, and fell down on her knees beside the 
bedstead and made Sir Timothy’s hand quite wet with her 
tears, as once she had done before. 

“Don’t be such a blarsted little fool,” said Mrs. Wembley. 
“Go and fetch the doctor. I dare say this furniture will 
pay for that, anyway.” 

It was the doctor—a young fellow from the Fulham Road 
with relations farther west—who sent Jenny for Helen. He 
knew something about Sir Timothy Brandon, it seemed, 
and took the liberty of reading Helen’s birthday letter which 
was underneath his patient’s pillow. 

“His friends ought to know,” he said. “There’s not a 
ghost of a chance for him.” 

Jenny was shown into the hall of the big house in the 
Bayswater Road by a little maid-servant who eyed her up 
and down with scorn before she condescended to take a 
message to her mistress. 

When Helen came down it was quite a time before she 
could understand the message, because Jenny started blub- 
bering about the gentleman who had been her best friend, 
and never a bit stuck up or grand, though he knew all the 


250 Little Novels of Nowadays 


great ladies in the land. He had always liked the way she 
did his kippers, and was that kind she could kiss the ground 
beneath his feet. Sir Timothy was going to take her to the 
Zoo 

“Sir Timothy ?”’ 

Helen turned very pale, and in a little whisper to herself 
said, “My dear old friend!” 

She drove in a taxi with Jenny to Hyacinth Grove, and 
was astonished when it stopped before the miserable house 
in that gloomy street. She had had no idea that her friend 
had come down so far as this. He had hidden it from her, 
as he had always hidden his own troubles. 

She stood by his bedside, shocked at the sight of him, in 
that poor room, with death visible in his face. 

“Tim!” she cried. ‘My dearest Tim. Why didn’t you 
tell me?” 

Sir Timothy Brandon raised himself a little. 

He knew her at once, but as she had been many years 
before. For a moment there was a look in his eyes as though 
his own youth had come back, ardent, eager, as Beauty 
Brandon. 

“My dear,” he whispered. “May I have the favour of the 
last dance with you?” 


\ 
* 


X: TURKISH DELIGHT 


I USED to think Constantinople the most beautiful city in 
the world when I first saw it from the deck of an Italian 
ship in the Golden Horn. I held my breath a moment be- 
cause of the vision of white domes, palaces, and minarets, 
between tall, spear-like cypresses, cutting the unclouded 
blue of the sky above the glittering waters of the Bosporus, 
which were like liquid gold. . . . Well, it is not the thought 
of beauty that comes to me now, when I think of the city 
of Constantine, but the remembrance of the tragedies, pas- 
sions, miseries of hunger and heart break, cruelty, corruption, 
and fear, which are overcrowded in the streets that wind 
narrowly up from Galata bridge to the heights of Pera. 

Above all I think of a Russian girl named Wanda Sazon- 
off, so full of gaiety and pluck, whom I came to know a lit- 
tle in this human cesspool, not because she suffered more 
than many others, but just because what happened to her is 
an ordinary story that one hears between one cup of coffee 
and another in the Pera Palace Hotel or the restaurant of 
Tokatlin’. Anyhow, it reveals the strange and tragic melo- 
drama of life which has been happening for the last few 
years and is happening now in this city crowded with exiles 
—Russians, Greeks, Armenians and Jews—uncertain of 
life, living from hand to mouth, disease-stricken, hunger 
hunted, and, lately, afraid of massacre. 

It was young Irving Stoddart, on Harington’s Headquar- 
ters Staff, who first came in touch with this girl Wanda, 
and was, as he confessed to me, enormously attracted by her 
quality of character. It was not in Constantinople that he 
saw her first, but on the island of Prinkipo in the Sea of 
Marmora, an hour away by steamer. 

Stoddart was put in charge of the British arrangements 
for housing and feeding some two thousand Russians— 
the last refugees from southern Russia after the break up of 

251 


ee Little Novels of Nowadays 


Wrangel’s army—who at this time were being supported 
by the British Government on that little island. Stoddart 
was glad of the job because it took him away from the heat 
and squalor of Constantinople, where the only amusement 
for British officers was an occasional cocktail in the Pera 
Palace Hotel, a prowl round the Turkish bazaars on the 
Stamboul side—not a safe place for lonely soldiers—and a 
headachy evening in the cabaret of the Petits Champs, with 
Russian music, Russian dances, and a very mixed company 
of British and American seamen, Turks, Armenians, Arabs, 
Jews and Greeks, and girls of every known nationality, 
speaking every known language, and trying to save them- 
selves from starvation by desperate efforts to attract the 
eyes of men. Rather boring after a bit to a young English 
officer like Irving Stoddart, with a country vicarage and two 
nice sisters in the background of his mind, and a decent code 
of honour in his soul. | 

The island of Prinkipo out there in the Sea of Marmora, 
with trees overhanging golden sands and little coves in which 
the water was crystal clear, and grassy slopes spangled with 
flowers looking away to the purple line of the Asiatic shore, 
was a paradise after the crowded corruption of Pera. 

It was like paradise to Irving Stoddart when he and 
Wanda used to sit on one of these slopes together or in the 
shelter of one of those coves, talking about life, religion, the 
meaning of things, and laughing at the grim jest of it. This 
girl Wanda was always laughing. He marvelled at that 
because she had seen the fiendish cruelty of men and was 
familiar with the sight of death in its most revolting aspect, 
from typhus, from famine, and from hanging—the Whites as 
well as the Reds had hanged their political opponents with 
equal ruthlessness. She remembered also the luxury of her 
childhood vividly enough to contrast it with present poverty. 

“You’re wonderful!’ he told her one day, as they sat 
alone like that on the edge of the island. “How can you 
face life as though it were a funny game when you’ve walked 
through terror and have no safety ahead? I haven’t half 
your pluck. I’m afraid!’ 

“Afraid of what, comrade?” she asked, raising herself on 


Turkish Delight 290 


her elbow as she lay on the warm grass, and turning her 
head so that she could smile into his eyes. 

She was a long, thin girl, very Russian, with black hair 
looped over her ears, and dark, luminous eyes, which Irving 
Stoddart, a shy fellow, found best to avoid sometimes. 

“Why,” he said, “I’m afraid of all sorts of damn things.” 

“What things?” she asked, without anxiety. 

He did not tell her all the things which gave him a sense 
of fear. That very morning news had come through to 
headquarters that the Turkish Nationalists, under Mus- 
tapha Kemal, had smashed through the Greek line in Asia 
Minor. They were marching hard to Smyrna, driving a 
rabble of Greeks before them. They would not stop there. 
Soon they would get busy round Constantinople, where a 
few British battalions and some battleships would have their 
work cut out to hold an immense coast line, to say nothing of 
defending a city seething with excitement and revolt. Every 
Turk in it would be glad to cut a Christian throat. It would 
not be a nice place for girls like Wanda. 

“T’m afraid about you,” he said. “I’ve bad news for you, 
mademoiselle.” 

Something in his voice told her that he was not speaking 
lightly. 

She sat up on the grass and touched his sleeve. 

“Tell me,” she said. “I have courage. Are we going to be 
turned out of this dear island? I have been so happy here 
that I knew it could never last. Life isn’t made that way!” 

He was startled because she had guessed so easily, and he 
nodded and cleared his throat, because of his own emotion. 

“Orders came through to-day. Prinkipo is to be evacuated 
immediately. Most of the people here will be taken off 
to Imbros. Not sucha health resort! A few will be allowed 
to go to the Pera side of Constantinople. I wouldn’t advise 
it as far as you’re concerned. It’s not going to be pleasant, 
or—safe.”’ 

Wanda Sazonoff stared out to the Sea of Marmora with its 
little glittering waves and that distant coast line. Irving 
Stoddart could see that she had a queer smile about her lips, 
though her face had paled. 


254 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“Another chapter of life!” she said presently. “I shall 
be sorry to close down this one. This island of dreams has 
been so beautiful and so full of peace—after Red terror and 
hunger, and lice, and the agony of people in flight. It has 
been like a fairy tale here, with you as my prince, coming 
across the water, three times a week. Well, you will be in 
Constantinople. We will meet there sometimes. Perhaps 
more often, so that I shall look back to this island not with 
regret but as a place of exile where you came too rarely.” 

It was an open confession of love for him, yet because of 
his shyness he only blushed and tried to tone down the 
meaning of her words. 

“It’s kind of you to put it like that. I may be able to 
help you a little over there. All the same’’—he hesitated 
and blushed more deeply—“TI hate to think of you in Pera. 
Anywhere but that!” 

“Why?” she asked, and then repeated the question, with 
a kind of urgency, as though she were angry with him 
because he did not like her to be where she could see him 
every day perhaps. 

He repeated the name “Pera!” as though that word ex- 
plained everything, as indeed it did to him. He had seen so 
many girls, Russian, like Wanda, and Greek, and Armenian, 
like other girls he had met, dragged down into the pits, that 
yawned in Pera, though it was so neatly paved in the Euro- 
pean quarter. Cabaret girls, waitresses in restaurants, danc- 
ing girls at the Petits Champs, earning a precarious liveli- 
hood by the entertainment of foreign officers and traders, 
who were out for adventure for a night or two, or a month 
or two, in this city between the East and West—how could 
they avoid those pits, into which at last, sometimes with 
despairing cries, they sank? How could Wanda avoid them, 
this girl with the laughing heart, and a beauty that had 
drawn him to Prinkipo far more often than he need have 
gone to carry out his duty? 

She guessed what was passing in his mind. Perhaps his 
expression of that word Pera had given her the clue—all the 
disgust he put into it. 

She smiled, with a careless shrug of the shoulders. ‘The 


Turkish Delight 200 


Pera end of Constantinople is no more dangerous than any 
end of any city. I mean for girls like me. I dare say there 
are dangers even in London? Are there not?” 

“The risks are not so great,” he replied. 

“Oh, yes!” she answered quickly. “Just as great, I’m 
sure, for those who live on the edge of hunger. I’m not 
afraid of Pera. I’m not afraid of anything! Perhaps I can 
get a place in one of our Russian restaurants. Then I can 
earn a little money for my old grandfather. Let’s go now 
and tell him the news.” : 

She gave her hand to young Stoddart, and they walked 
back to the villa which she shared with other Russian fam- 
ilies. 

Irving Stoddart tells me that he will never forget that 
last evening he spent in Prinkipo. Many of the Russians 
there heard the news of the evacuation as a kind of death 
sentence. Others were like people shipwrecked on a desert 
island where they have lived happily in spite of all its hard- 
ships, and who repine when a ship rescues them and takes 
them back to civilisation. These Russians on Prinkipo after 
their flight from Bolshevik Russia had been relieved from 
all responsibilities, anxieties, and the ordinary struggle for 
existence. The British Government had fed them, housed 
them—in villas which belonged to Turkish pashas now with 
Mustapha Kemal in Asia Minor—and clothed them. They 
had had nothing in the world to do except talk interminably 
of old days in Tsarist Russia, tell for the thousandth time 
the story of their escape from the Bolsheviks, and gossip 
about the scandals, quarrels, love affairs, and social life on 
this island, where they still kept up their old caste and, with 
usual Russian fatalism, amused themselves with life as much 
as possible. Those who had a little money gambled with it, 
or gave feasts in a wooden restaurant that had been estab- 
lished near the landing stage. The younger folk danced to 
an orchestra organised by some of the men. They went for 
donkey rides in the island, made love by moonlight under the 
trees, and did not look ahead to the time when this pleasant 
exile must end. 

- That time had come. The news had spread like wildfire 


256 Little Novels of Nowadays 


round the island, after a proclamation had been pasted up in 
the restaurant. Outside the villas, groups of these Russians 
stood talking, with gloomy faces. Many of the women were 
weeping. Some of the old people—generals of Wrangel’s 
army, in tattered uniforms, and poor old ladies who had 
escaped with them—sat outside the doors with clasped 
hands, and a look of fear in their eyes. It was the fear of 
people tired of wandering, too old to be uprooted again, 
afraid of the future. 

As Irving Stoddart, in his British uniform, passed with 
Wanda Sazonoff, many people crowded about him asking 
anxious questions. 

“When do we have to go? Is it true that we must go to 
Imbros? That fever stricken place! The British Govern- 
ment is tired of supporting us then? It no longer cares 
whether we starve and die! Why not let us stay in Con- 
stantinople, among all our folk in Pera?” 

Stoddart answered them patiently, the same questions over 
and over again. He was glad to get inside the villa where 
Wanda lived and inside the room where her grandfather sat 
writing his reminiscences of old-time Russia, and of the Im- 
perial Court, where he had been a great figure as Governor 
of the Kremlin. 

Now ina peasant’s smock such as Tolstoy wore, he sat on 
a low stool before some upturned packing cases, which served 
as a table, writing, with bowed shoulders over a child’s copy 
book, in which he was telling the story of a life that passed, 
except for his living memory. He had a thin white beard 
which fell to his chest, and a leathery old face with a straight 
nose and high forehead on which there was a look of dignity 
and resignation. . 

Wanda put an arm about his neck. “Grandfather, we 
have some news to tell you. Not bad news, though it means 
another change of life.” 

“IT know,” said the old man. “I heard it a hundred times 
in a hundred yards. Prinkipo is worse than Moscow for 
gossip and tale telling.” 

He kissed his granddaughter on the forehead and looked 
at her anxiously. 


} 


Turkish Delight tL 


“Tt doesn’t matter what happens to me. I look back 
always to the past. But you belong to the future. With 
your youth. I am afraid of your future, Wanda. So many 
dangers ahead, so many troubles in store, my little one, and 
desperate poverty. What will you do in Constantinople if 
I am taken ill, or have to leave you?” 

“Leave me!” cried Wanda, with sham indignation. “Why, 
grandfather, you’re not going to run away from me?” 

He shook his head, with a mournful smile. 

“I’m getting old and weak. I may have to go before I 
write ‘finis’ to this book of memories. Then you will be left 
alone in the world. It’s a wicked world for lonely children, 
my poor darling.” 

“Tt’s a funny old world if you keep your courage and a 
sense of humour,” said Wanda. “And don’t forget I have 
good friends, granddad! You haven’t said a word to Cap- 
tain Stoddart.” 

The old man rose hurriedly and grasped Stoddart’s hand. 
“T am always honoured when he comes under our roof,” he 
said. 

Wanda went into another room to make some tea for 
them, and when they were left together the old man spoke 
excitedly to Irving Stoddart. 

“My dear sir, forgive me if I ask you to do me a little 
Service ne sve 

“Any service,” said Stoddart. 

The old man hesitated and his leathery face flushed and 
then became pale again. 

“Your Government,” he said, “has been good enough to 
keep us here in some comfort. We had to declare ourselves 
destitute—paupers—in order to obtain their charity. In my 
case it was not strictly true, although actually I am ruined, 
like the rest of us. But I kept back something for my 
daughter’s sake. Two little jewels, sir, in case of dire need 
later on. They are diamonds that have belonged to my 
family for many generations. They are worth something in 
the world’s market—a few hundred pounds, I think.” 


“As much as that?” asked Stoddart. “That is a lot of 
money, sir.” 


258 Little Novels of Nowadays 


He knew many cases of Russian exiles who had tried to 
sell diamonds to the Jew dealers in Constantinople, and 
had been offered miserable sums. 

“They are good diamonds,” said the old man. “Some of 
the finest in Russia, as the late Tsar once told me. I have 
been hoarding them for Wanda’s sake. Hiding them as my 
last source of wealth, so that when I die she may not be 
left penniless in a world full of temptation and terror for 
poor girls. 

He came closer to Stoddart and whispered to him. 

“My dear sir, I want you to sell them for me. There are 
so many harpies who rob us poor Russians. And there are 
many thieves in Constantinople. If you will sell them and 
keep the money, and look after my little girl Wanda, so that 
she need not starve or sell her soul, I should no longer be 
afraid of death. It is perhaps a great service to ask of you. 
But you are an English gentleman, and you will understand 
and forgive a poor old man who feels the hand of death 
upon him.” 

Young Stoddart was touched with pity for this broken old 
exile. He seemed to have a foreboding of death, perhaps 
because of this order to leave the sanctuary of Prinkipo. No 
wonder he was anxious about his granddaughter. 

“T’ll do my best to sell the jewels,” said Stoddart. “But 
I think you had better keep the money I get for them. I 
may not stay in Constantinople.” 

The old man said, “Yes, yes, you must keep the money 
until Wanda wants it. Perhaps’”—he broke his sentence and 
looked wistfully at Stoddart—“perhaps,” he said slowly after 
a long pause, “you and she might share it together one day. 
How happy I should be then, living or dead!” 

Young Stoddart was silent and abashed. He confessed 
to me later that he wanted before all things to do what the 
old man hinted to him—to share life with Wanda. But with 
a staff captain’s pay and a mother and sisters looking for 
help in an English vicarage, how could he ask any girl to 
link up life with him? In any case his immediate future 
was uncertain. There might be war with Turkey, and all 


Turkish Delight 259 


hell let loose again. Not fair on a girl to talk of marriage 
at such a time! 

The old man said again, “How happy I should be!’ and 
then, crossing the room in a stealthy way, stooped down and 
picked up an old top boot under some rags in the corner of 
the room. 

“My hiding place,” he said, chuckling. “My jewel case. 
This old boot, which has tramped many a weary league with 
me!” 

He put his hand in the long boot, and felt towards the toe, 
patiently, with his thin bony fingers. Gradually the smile 
faded from his eyes and a look of terror crept into them. 

“Strange!” he said. “Strange!” and poked about again 
in the toe of the boot. 

Suddenly his face was convulsed with a look of agony, 
and he gave a tragic cry. 

“My jewels. They are gone! Some devil has robbed 
me!” 

He dropped the boot and beat with his clasped hands on 
the wall of the room, sobbing and groaning. | 

“The jewels I had saved for little Wanda! The safe- 
guard of her soul and body! Her only heritage! O God, 
O God! It is taken from us!” 

Stoddart tells me that the tears came into his own eyes 
because of this tragedy. It was not a selfish grief. The 
old man was thinking only of that girl who had held his 
hand in troop trains and farm carts and refugee camps, and 
whose courage had been greater than his in the days of the 
Great Fear, when he had escaped with her from the red 
tide of revolution which had engulfed this girl’s father— 
his son—and her poor, terror-stricken mother. 

But he marvelled again at the girl herself. She came into 
the room, hearing her grandfather’s cries, and “did not turn 
a hair,” said Stoddart, when she heard of the theft, but tried 
to comfort him with brave words, utterly regardless of her 
own loss. 

“Tt’s nothing!” she said. “Why, grandfather, what does 
anything matter so that we are together, in safety? I’ma 


260 Little Novels of Nowadays 


strong girl. I can work. I’m getting tired of this idle life, 
living on charity. We shall be happier in Constantinople 
when I get some good position.” 

The old man still wept, but became more tranquil later 
on, so that Wanda was able to walk down to the landing 
stage with Stoddart, where his launch waited to take him 
back to Constantinople. It was a lovely night, with a star- 
strewn sky and a luminous sea, still blue, and shining with 
phosphorescence where little waves came lapping along the 
shore. Lamps were alight in the Turkish villas where the 
refugees were housed, and through some of the open win- 
dows came the sound of children wailing, and through one 
window the noise of a woman weeping. 

“The last night in Prinkipo!” said Wanda. “What fate 
lies in wait for all these people?” 

“Queer adventures ahead!” said Stoddart, and, he 
thought, a lot of misery. 

The girl looked out across the sea to the dark coast line 
beyond the glittering water, and spoke in a low voice: 

“With a little courage one can shape one’s own fate, per- 
haps. These people do nothing for themselves. They have 
sunk into fatalism. It’s the weakness of Russian character.” 

“Not yours!” said Stoddart. 

“T’m a fatalist, too,” she answered, “but I have youth on 
my side, and I’m not tired yet like the older folk.” 

She put her hand on his arm with a caressing touch. 

“How beautiful is life!” she said. In spite of all its misery 
she thought life beautiful. 

He kissed her for the first time that night, down there by 
the landing stage, and as his launch went away he saw her 
figure standing above the phosphorescent sea. She kissed her 
hand to him. 

It was a stroke of bad luck, worse for Wanda than for 
him, that Irving Stoddart was ordered on staff duty with the 
British troops at Chanak, on the strip of coast across the 
Straits. That was after the horror of Smyrna, when the 
Turkish irregulars set fire to the Armenian quarter of the 
city and started a massacre of the Greeks and Armenians, 
while hundreds of thousands of terror-stricken people 


Turkish Delight 261 


swarmed down to the quays, struggled madly for places on 
the boats, and in many cases drowned themselves rather 
than fall into the hands of the Turks behind there in that 
burning town, swept with flame under a pall of smoke which 
spread out above the sea and darkened the sky. 

From that quayside came a cry of agony which chilled the 
soul of the world with horror and the warning of it caused 
a reign of fear in Constantinople among all the refugees and 
Christian communities. 

Stoddart tells me that he never saw fear more visible and 
more infectious than among those Greeks, Armenians, Rus- 
sians and Jews, who lived on the Pera side of the city. The 
fall of Smyrna, and the massacre there, seemed to them like 
their own death warrant, and their terror increased when the 
French withdrew from Chanak, refusing to support the Brit- 
ish troops, surrounded on three sides by Turkish forces sent 
forward by Mustapha Kemal, who demanded a free passage 
for his troops across the Straits to Constantinople. 

That city became a prey to sinister and terrible rumours. 
Not a night passed without stories spreading like wildfire 
that the Turks in Stamboul beyond Galata bridge, were ad- 
vancing towards Pera, eager for the cutting of Christian 
throats, and that fire and massacre had already started along 
the Bosporus. Some of the dancing girls in the Greek and 
Russian cabarets became sick with fear so that they could 
not dance. The wild night life of Pera, with all its vice, 
went on, but its artificial gaiety masked white-lipped terror, 
and above its strident music rose sometimes the shrieks of 
hysterical women. Only the British “Tommies” and the 
American seamen remained calm and stolid, although they 
knew more than the civil population how impossible it 
would be to safeguard so many defenceless folk if the Turk- 
ish population rose and the guns went off at Chanak. 

It was into this city of fear that the girl Wanda came with 
her grandfather, in another boatload of refugees. 

Stoddart met them by the quayside and took them in a 
horse cab to a lodging he had found for them not far from 
his own billet in the streets that go down behind the British 
Embassy. It was not a refugee shelter house, but a private 


262 Little Novels of Nowadays 


‘apartment, barely and miserably furnished, but clean enough. 
It belonged to some Israelites to whom he had paid a month’s 
money in advance. It was as muchas he could do out of his 
pay and more than Wanda wanted him to do. 

“You are too generous!” she told him. “I will pay you 
back when I get some work.” 

He did not tell her that her chance of work was not good 
in a city over-crowded with destitute Russians—especially 
now that many of the restaurants and cabarets were shutting 
up because the British garrison was being drained in order 
to strengthen the lines at Chanak. 

She laughed when her grandfather, looking very worn 
and frail, complained rather querulously that it was his duty 
to work for her and that she made an old baby of him. He 
still had strength enough, he said, to wait at table in some 
restaurant, or even to wash up dishes. 

“A pretty thing!” cried Wanda, gaily. “The former gov- 
ernor of the Kremlin washing plates in a low eating house! 
No, we haven’t come to that yet, grandfather. I am going 
to save the honour of the family.” 

It seemed to Stoddart the worst way of saving the honour 
of the family, and the gravest risk to her own, when on the 
night he left for Chanak she told him that she had obtained 
a place as programme seller in the Petits Champs music 
hall. The wage was small, but some of the officers were 
generous and she would make quite a lot in “extras.” She 
hoped to make enough to keep her grandfather in comfort— 
at least enough to provide him with food. 

Stoddart groaned, and looked at her with a kind of 
anguish. 

“It’s a frightful place! It reeks with vice. All those 
officers, out for adventure! Those Turks and Levantines 
without any kind of code! And you with your beauty. Good 
God!” 

His distress touched her and yet did not make her fright- 
ened. She was so sure of herself. 

“It will be amusing, and not more dangerous than other 
places. I know how to take care of myself, my dear, espe- 
cially when you are near me to defend me from any evil.” 


Turkish Delight 263 


He had not told her yet about Chanak. He had hoped to 
the last that he might stay on in Constantinople. But that 
very day he had received his orders, and he was crossing that 
night with other officers. | 

He told her then, in a broken voice. 

“T shall not be near you, Wanda. I am ordered off to 
Chanak. If there’s war Ns 

For the first time she broke a little and lost her cour- 
age. 

“You are going away? Perhaps to fight! Oh, God, be 
merciful to women!” — 

For the first time he saw her weep, but when he put his 
arms about her she smiled through her tears and her caresses 
made him understand how joyful their love would be if 
Fate gave them any chance. Her grandfather had gone to 
bed in the next room and they were alone together until 
nearly midnight, when Stoddart had to leave. Before he 
went he tried to give her some money, two notes of ten 
pounds each, but she would not take them, and was certain 
that she would not need them. 

“All I want is your love,” she said. “That makes me 
rich.” 

They talked as lovers do in that little bare room in the 
City of Fear. Through the open window, looking down 
upon a Turkish cemetery with its white headstones among 
tall cypress trees there came the long, wailing notes of the 
Imam calling the faithful to prayer from a minaret in a 
mosque down there. From some back street near by came 
the sound of rifle shots. Some drunken seamen were reel- 
ing down the Rue de Pera, singing riotously. The rasping 
music of the Russian orchestra in the Petits Champs came in 
gusts on the quiet air of this Turkish night. But in that 
room none of those sounds broke the spell that love had put 
upon this boy and girl who sat in the darkness with their 
arms about each other, whispering. Stoddart had told me 
something of that, in his shy way, and with poignant remem- 
brance, and self-reproach. I can’t see that he has any cause 
for self-reproach. It was not his fault that he was ordered 
to Chanak and had to leave this girl to face the adventure of 


264 Little Novels of Nowadays 


life without his help. Not his fault that within a week of 
getting to Chanak he was carried to the field hospital, deliri- 
ous with typhoid. But it was bad luck on the girl. 

In that cabaret of the Petits Champs her worst luck was 
her look of freshness and unspoilt youth among so many 
painted, tired, and nerve-racked women. It attracted the 
eyes of all the men there. She was instantly distinguished 
among the women who sold programmes, and sweet cham- 
pagne and cigarettes, and among the dancing girls—mostly 
Russian—who between the turns came to sit in the boxes 
with French, Italian, British, American and Turkish officers, 
and low-class traders, from all nations. They picked her 
out and spoke about her among themselves. 

“She looks a bright little thing,” said one of Stoddart’s 
friends, pointing her out to me. 

“Good blood, I bet,” said another officer. “It always tells, 
even in a hole like this.” 

They liked her look of gaiety and courage, which she wore 
easily at first, but afterwards, when Stoddart did not write 
and things were getting bad, with an effort of spirit. 

Things began to get bad after the first month. That wage 
of hers was not enough without “extras,” to pay for the 
next month’s lodging or for her grandfather’s food, and the 
old man was very ill and unable to leave his bed. The Isra- 
elite, with whom Stoddart had placed them, fled from his 
house owing to fears of a Turkish massacre, and they had 
gone to a more miserable place, dirty beyond words, with 
lice creeping up the walls and a stench from the courtyard 
where refugee children swarmed and wailed, many of them 
stricken with dysentery and typhus. Wanda cleaned the 
rooms, made her grandfather as comfortable as possible, 
half-starved herself so that he should be nourished, but had 
to eat enough to keep her strength for those evenings when in 
the Petits Champs she had to look merry and bright and play 
her part. 

She did not get those “extras” which one of her friends at 
the Petits Champs had held out as a compensation for low 
wages. They only came to girls who had no self-respect, 
or at least no other hope of life, and allowed themselves to 


Turkish Delight 265 


be fondled by men who had drunk too much wine or by any 
kind of beast. Not that they were all beasts. Some of the 
foreign officers, British and French, were just young men 
bored with this exile in Constantinople, and lonely without 
their own womenfolk. It was natural that they should 
have roving eyes for any pretty girl, and some of them were 
kind and courteous, and even chivalrous. But it amounted to 
the same thing. A girl could not get their money or their 
presents, or free meals from them, if after each performance 
at the Petits Champs she slipped back, like Wanda, to a mis- 
erable lodging where an old grandfather lay in bed and 
craved pitifully for her homecoming. 

One of Wanda’s Russian friends—little Countess Nastia 
—told her this with a candour that was meant to be kind. 

“Dearest Wanda, you will starve to death unless you get a 
lover to support you. It’s what we all have to do, whether 
we like it or not.” 

“T have a lover,” said Wanda. “I will starve to death 
rather than dishonour his love.” 

The little Countess Nastia shrugged her shoulders. 

“What’s the use of him over at Chanak? You want one 
here, and could take your choice—English, French or Turk. 
They are all attracted by you! That young officer of 
Zouaves, par exemple.” 

Wanda laughed and shook her head. 

“The French have abandoned the English at Chanak. I 
should be a traitor to my English lover if I made friends with 
a French lieutenant.” 

“The French are right,” said Nastia. “They have done the 
only thing to save us from a Turkish massacre. But why 
drag in politics? I’m thinking only of your health, my dear. 
You’re getting thin and pale. Why should you starve when 
half the officers in Pera want to invite you to their tables? 
It’s idiotic! It’s not fair on us others. It’s as though you 
put yourself on a pedestal above all poor girls who take the 
luck they find and make the best of it.” 

“T have no blame for you,” said Wanda. “Only pity and 
understanding. My luck is different. That’s all. If I can 
hold out long enough I shall get a good reward. My 


266 Little Novels of Nowadavs 


English lover and his home in England! Isn’t that worth 
waiting for?’ 

“Not if you have to starve and die in a back street of 
Pera. What will happen then to your poor old grand- 
father ?” ) 

Wanda felt the pallor of her own face at those words. 
They asked a question which was already nagging in her own 
mind, all day long, and sometimes in sleepless nights. What 
would happen to her grandfather if she fell ill or died before 
Irving Stoddart came back from Chanak? The old man was 
unable to stir out of bed now, and was like a child, needing 
her help for every little thing. He was lonely and helpless 
without her and yet very patient and pitiful, because he felt 
himself a burden to her. The loss of those jewels had broken 
him, and he suffered an agony of fear and self-reproach 
because Wanda might be left alone, penniless, in a terrible 
world. 

“I’m a useless log!” he groaned. “If only I could get out 
and do some work! My poor little one, it is hard that you 
should have to keep a silly old man for whom God has no 
more use.” 

“You have been my comrade,” said Wanda. “Father and 
mother and brother to me. What should I do without you, 
little old grandfather ?” 

Never once did she let him see the fear that was creeping 
into her heart because Irving Stoddart did not write, and 
because her wages were not enough for both of them unless 
one starved. Why did she get no letters from her lover? 
Over and over again she went to the house of the Israelite in 
case he should have come back. But the house stayed shut 
up and barred, and perhaps under its locked door lay letters 
that would have given her hope and joy. He might have 
sent her some of that money which she had refused to take, 
so foolishly, so proudly. 

She tried to send a message to Irving Stoddart and gave 
one to a young English officer who was going there, but a 
week passed and then another, and still no word came. Had 
he forgotten her? It was that doubt which crept into her 
mind and made her lose courage. Perhaps he had merely 


Turkish Delight 267 


played with her, like so many others with Russian girls in 
Constantinople, and then had gone away carelessly, glad to 
end an episode which might become embarrassing. 

It was at that time, when her faith in Stoddart was hor- 
ribly shaken and when she was weakened by under nourish- 
ment, that she came under the notice of Youssouf Abdul 
Bey, the most notorious young Turk in Constantinople. He 
was the son of a pasha who was one of Mustapha Kemal’s 
cavalry leaders, and his mother was the lady Fatma, who 
was known as one of the most enlightened and broad- 
minded leaders of the modernist movement in Turkey. She 
was adored by the Turks in Stamboul on the other side of 
the Galata bridge because of her great charity to the poor, 
and her educational work among the women, and it was only 
the old-fashioned Turk, fanatical in adherence to the old 
traditions, who disliked her—hated her is not too strong a 
word—hbecause she often went unveiled, and encouraged 
Turkish ladies to adopt the freedom of European habits. It 
was strange, perhaps, that such a woman—so noble, and so 
spiritual—should have a son like young Youssouf, who was 
a scamp, and utterly dissolute. A handsome fellow of 
twenty-two or so, it was difficult to tell him as a Turk apart 
from the fez. He looked more like an Italian of the South, 
and had considerable charm of manner when he was not 
abominably drunk, or worse still, doped with cocaine and 
other drugs which he had learnt to use among the Greek 
women in Pera. He was a familiar figure in the Palace 
Hotel and the most expensive restaurants in the Grand Rue, 
where he was always accompanied by Russian or Greek girls, 
upon whom he spent money lavishly if they happened to 
amuse him. He had a little villa on the Bosporus where 
he entertained them—I heard many stories of “orgies” there 
—and a steam launch on which he loved to go at a great 
pace through the Golden Horn, frightening all the boatmen 
in their caiques, and a carriage and pair driven by a young 
Turk, in which he could be seen every day with his latest 
lady friend. 

It was this fellow who picked out Wanda among all the 
girls in the Petits Champs one night, with a sudden pas- 


268 Little Novels of Nowadays 


sionate desire which was observed by many people there. 
He sat between two Greek girls smoking a cigarette and 
looking around on the audience with a bored contempt, until 
he saw Wanda. Something in her face, some grace about 
her, seemed to interest him. He sat up straighter and stared 
at her, as she moved about among the tables selling her 
programmmes and cigarettes. As she came nearer he beck- 
oned to her and she smiled a little and held out a programme. 

“Not that,” he said, speaking in perfect Russian. “I’m 
not interested in this idiotic show. I want to talk to you. 
Come and sit by my side, and afterwards we will go out and 
take a little dinner together.” 

He spoke to one of the Greek girls brutally. 

“Get out of that chair. I’m tired of you. You laugh too 
much.” 

The girl looked as though she could kill him, and her 
eyes were not friendly to Wanda. 

“The Turks are not yet civilised,” she said, shrugging her 
shoulders, and not budging from her chair. 

Youssouf Bey laughed harshly. 

“Civilisation in Pera is the Turk’s idea of hell. I regret 
I ever came under its refining influence. Anyhow, clear out, 
my little sample of civilisation. I want to talk with this 
lady.” 

The boy—he was hardly more than that—tilted the girl 
out of her chair so that she sat heavily on the floor, to the 
great amusement of the other girl, and the disgust of some 
American sailors sitting close. 

“Sit down,” he said to Wanda. 

She turned from him in anger. 

“T do not sit with savages!” she said proudly, and bent to 
give a helping hand to the Greek girl. 

Youssouf smiled at her. 

“You will come and dine with me,” he said. “I like your 
proud sad face. It’s different from the others. You have 
the beauty of a young lily. So white and exquisite. Let us 
go. This place makes me sick.” 

He rose from his chair and offered his arm with a gallant 
gesture. 


Turkish Delight 269 


“T am not at your command,” said Wanda. “There are 
men here—even here!—who will protect a girl from your 
brutality.” 

He laughed at her, without anger in his eyes. 

“T’m not brutal,” he answered. “I don’t command you 
to dine with me. I beg of you. lama very humble lover of 
good women. You are good. How is it possible that you 
are still good in this place of infamy ?” 

She turned from him and went away, and he did not 
follow her then. But the next night he came alone, and she 
saw his eyes fixed upon her with a kind of ardent curiosity. 
She would not go near him, but after the performance found 
him waiting for her outside the gardens. 

“Dear lady,” he said, walking by her side, “do not think 
I’m lying when [I tell you that I’m terribly in love with you! 
Can’t we be friends and comrades? If you wish for any- 
thing I can buy it for you. I have a villa on the Bospo- 
rus. It is yours! I have a little boat that goes like a swan 
through the waters of the Golden Horn. You are its mis- 
tress! If you like silk frocks, jewels, any pretty merchan- 
dise in Pera, you have but to choose, and I will lay these 
things at your feet in return for one kind smile. Come now, 
is that a bargain?” 

Wanda did not want a villa on the Bosporus, or a white 
launch on the Golden Horn, or any trinkets or toys. She 
wanted something to eat more satisfying than the roll of 
bread she had bought for lunch, and she wanted a few eggs 
for her grandfather, who lay in a filthy room, fever-stricken 
and very sick. 

She faced round on the young Turk, and her eyes flashed 
at him through the darkness, where they walked under the 
wall of the Pera Palace. 

“I’m starving,” she said harshly. “And I have an old 
grandfather who is ill and helpless. What will you give me 
out of charity, with nothing in return, neither smiles, nor 
friendship, nor what you call love?” 

He was startled by these words, and by her sudden de- 
mand. Perhaps beneath his rottenness there was some 
chivalry in this young Turk. I think there was. 


270 Little Novels of Nowadays 


He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a wad of 
Turkish notes. 

“Take these,” he said. “They’re nothing to me. As for 
our friendship, perhaps that will follow, without a bargain. 
Au revoir, mademoiselle.” 

He thrust the notes into her hands and, turning sharply 
on his heel, went away from her. 

Perhaps, with some Oriental subtlety, he knew that this 
gift without conditions was the best way of melting her 
coldness. That is possible. It happened that way, though 
I think he had a sudden impulse of chivalry. But with this 
free gift in her hands, that “extra” which she needed for 
very life, it was natural that Wanda should think more 
kindly of him. Every night for a week he waited for her 
outside the Petits Champs, but merely touched his fez and 
smiled and said “Good night!” In the darkness she looked 
back over her shoulder to see if he followed, but he did not 
shadow her. Then one day before noon he met her in the 
street as he was driving in his scarlet-lined carriage, stopped 
the carriage, jumped out, touched his breast and his fez in 
the Turkish way, and said, ““Why not come to lunch with 
me? At the Pera Palace! Without conditions. I ask 
neither for smiles nor friendship nor love! Only your 
company and permission to look at you in the humblest 
way.” 

“I will come,’ 
nothing else.” 

“No charity,” he said. “A little waste paper.” 

He helped her into the carriage and she sat by his side 
and did not notice the amusement of the passers-by at the 
sight of her there with Youssouf Bey. So this notorious 
young Turk had captured another Russian girl, they thought. 
In the Pera Palace Hotel, Youssouf’s mother, the lady 
Fatma happened to be lunching with several other Turkish 
ladies, unveiled in the new style. Young Youssouf greeted 
his mother with reverence, ignored her reproachful eyes, 
and chose a seat for Wanda and himself at the far end of 
the room. 

Wanda was ashamed of her shabby frock and the broken 


? 


she said. “With thanks for charity, but 


Turkish Delight 271 


boots she hid under the table, but she was pleased to dine 
in this great room at a snow-white tablecloth with sparkling 
silver. It reminded her of old days in Russia before the 
world fell to ruin. A Cossack officer in his black uniform 
bowed to her, and then looked in a hostile way at the young 
Turk by her side, and again at her, with pity. It was Gen- 
eral Tchichiganioff, who had been a friend of her father’s. 
She was unconscious of the hatred in the eyes of the Turkish 
ladies with Youssouf’s mother, who kept glancing at her 
from the other side of the room with daggers in their dark 
eyes. 

Youssouf behaved well on the whole. He chose wonder- 
ful food for her, and was very courteous. They did not talk 
much, though once or twice he made little attempts at gal- 
lantry. | 

“Your hands are beautiful!’ he said. 

“They’re working hands,” she answered. “We Russians 
are no longer afraid of toil.” ‘ 

“You have a great sadness in your eyes,” he said later. 
“The tragedy of the world is in your soul. I understand 
it, though I try to forget it and do weak and foolish things.” 

“The Turks have piled up tragedy,” she answered. 
“Smyrna will be written in letters of blood.” 

“Oh, Smyrna!” he said lightly. “That has been exagger- 
ated. The Greeks were responsible.” 

She did not argue that with him. Some time later she 
answered him with simple candour when he asked her 
whether she believed in love. 

“Not in your kind of love! You are a Turk, and you 
think of women as your slaves and playthings.” 

“That’s unfair,” he said. “We Turks have high ideals of 
women. But not in Pera! Not among European women— 
these vile creatures among whom I have been losing all 
caste.and honour, and degrading my father’s name.” 

_ “TI am one of them,” said Wanda. “A Russian girl for 
whom you have no respect, though you trade on their poverty 
and ruin.” 

She rose from the table and would have left him if he had 
not humbled himself to the very dust. 


2a, Little Novels of Nowadays 


“For you,” he said, “I have immense, immeasurable re- 
spect. For your courage and pride. You are one of those 
women who raise men from their beastliness. I reverence 
you as I do my mother, who is very beautiful in her soul, 
so that I am utterly unworthy to be her son.” 

God knows whether there was any sincerity in his words. 
He was a strange mixture of viciousness and chivalry, very 
decadent, and yet with some decent strain in him. 

He made no attempt to keep Wanda longer than she 
wanted to stay and it was when he rose with her and left the 
table that a scene happened which was overheard by several 
English officers and a Cossack with them, so that it was 
repeated in the usual gossip of the Grand’ Rue. 

Youssouf’s mother, the lady Fatma, came across to her 
son and put her hand on his arm. 

“You are disgracing me and breaking my heart,” she 
said, in Russian, so that Wanda understood. 

Then she turned to Wanda, with a tragic and hostile look, 
yet with some sadness and pity too. 

“Can you not leave our Turkish youth alone?” she asked. 
“T understand your temptation and your need, but you have 
the English and French, and Greeks and Israelites. Are they 
not enough for your debauchery, your drugs, your wicked- 
ness? Before the war Turkish youth was uncontaminated 
by the vice of Pera. Now it is being poisoned in this city of 
sin. We Turkish women watch the ruin of our sons with 
breaking hearts. We pray to Allah that they may be saved 
from your witcheries. In the hour of victory our Turkish 
race is losing its soul because of the abomination of Chris- 
tian women.” 

For a moment there was silence, while people in the room 
listened with open ears. Then young Youssouf broke out 
into angry speech. 

“It is abominable to insult a Christian lady in this public 
place! That does not belong to the honour of my father’s 
name. It is an outrage against me!” 

Wanda was pale to the lips. She did not answer the ter- 
rible indictment of Youssouf’s mother, of which she, at least, 


\ 


Turkish Delight 21d 


was guiltless, and with a gesture of disdain passed down the 
room, unconscious still of the scorn and hatred in the eyes 
of those other Turkish ladies at the table by the door. 

Young Youssouf came running after her with a thousand 
apologies and emotional regrets. She refused his offer of 
the carriage and walked back alone to her miserable rooms 
where the old grandfather lay in bed with tired eyes which 
lighted up with gladness when she came in. He had been 
mystified, even scared with some secret terror, by the sudden 
wealth that had come to her—that money of Youssouf’s, 
with which she had bought new laid eggs, and tobacco, and 
some fuel for the room, and other comforts which she shared 
with him. But he was satisfied now. It was perfectly sim- 
ple! God had been very good. Wanda was getting bigger 
wages at the Petits Champs because of her cleverness and 
hard work. So she had hinted to him, thanking God 
eG a oe 

The only sorrow now was the silence of that young Eng- 
lish officer, who had been so very kind to Wanda—so kind 
that the old man had indulged in day dreams, which he 
dared not tell ‘her <2": 


It was at the end of the tenth week after Stoddart’s depar- 
ture for Chanak that Wanda surrendered a little to the 
cruelty of fate. Youssouf’s gift had all gone now. Starva- 
tion stared her in the face, and she could buy nothing better 
than bad bread for an old grandfather who could hardly 
eat it. There was only one way of escape, and that was to 
a little villa on the Bosporus, where Youssouf would wait 
for her. There was to be a room for her grandfather. 
There were to be no conditions. Youssouf himself would 
not go there if she disliked his company. Sometimes he 
would come under her windows in his little launch, or one 
of his caiques, and wave his hand to her, and ask whether 
she needed anything. So he said! So he said! 

She accepted the offer at the end of the tenth week, and 
it was in Youssouf’s carriage that she drove her grand- 
father away from Pera to that wooden house on the Bos- 


274 Little Novels of Nowadays 


porus, where there would be food enough, and a woman 
servant, and dream-like luxury after the filth of that lodging 
in the back street. 

Her grandfather was astonished and afraid. 

“How is it you can pay for this new house?” he asked. 
“Where do you get the money? For God’s sake, my little 
one, tell me the truth.” 

She did not tell him the truth. She did not undeceive him 
when a great light seemed to burst upon him, and he cursed 
himself as an old fool because he had not guessed that this 
good fortune had come from Captain Stoddart, that young 
Englishman, in whose honour he had perfect faith. 

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” he asked. “Why did 
you hide it from me?” 

“I was pledged to secrecy,” she said, hiding the tears in her 
eyes because it was Youssouf Abdul and not Irving Stoddart 
whose house was to be hers. 

It was a wooden house, with a flat roof and shuttered win- 
dows through which, when Wanda opened them, she could 
look down to the waters of the Bosporus, with the British 
fleet lying there at anchor. In the garden was a little old 
mosque with a minaret, from which the Imam called to 
prayer at the appointed hours. This old man was also a shoe- 
maker as well as a priest and worked in a wooden shed by 
the side of the mosque. Next door was another villa, belong- 
ing to a Turkish pasha who had been in the service of the 
Sultan and now lived there with the women of his harem 
and their daughters and servants. Wanda saw their faces 
at the windows when she went in and out, and sometimes saw 
their figures in the garden or on their balcony. On the 
morning after her arrival, she met three of these women 
under the archway that led to their villa and hers. They had 
their veils drawn over their mouths and noses, but their eyes 
stared at her, and she did not like their look because of its 
hatred. One of them drew back as she passed, as though 
the touch of her dress might carry some plague. 

“They do not like me,” thought Wanda, and she remem- 
bered the words spoken by Youssouf’s mother, so that a 
chill passed through her. 


Turkish Delight 215 


It was on the evening of that day that young Youssouf 
came to the villa for the first time. Wanda heard him blow 
the whistle of his white launch, and from the balcony she 
saw him steer it alongside the wooden landing stage at the 
bottom of the garden. He pushed his way through the 
tangled bushes and stood under the balcony and called to 
er: 

“My lady Wanda!’ 

It was after the evening meal which she had had with 
her grandfather, who marvelled at the luxury which had 
come to them through the generosity of Irving Stoddart— 
as he thought! The Turkish servant woman, who could 
speak no Russian, and nothing but her own language, had 
waited upon them without a word, and Wanda had felt 
uncomfortable because of her silent way of moving about 
in Turkish slippers, which made no noise on the polished 
boards. For a moment, too, she had seen the image of this 
woman’s face in a mirror over a divan covered with a Per- 
sian rug, and in her eyes there was that look of loathing and 
disdain which had made Wanda shiver when the women next 
door had shrunk from her under the archway. Wanda’s 
grandfather had gone to bed, and this servant was clearing 
away the meal when Youssouf called under the balcony. 

For a moment Wanda stood irresolute in the room, with 
her hands clasped. She had been waiting for this visit from 
Youssouf with a sense of fear. She could not put him off 
forever, taking everything and giving nothing. She could 
not live in his house, eat his food, be served by his waiting 
woman, and then treat him with such disdain. She would 
have to pay the price of her dependence on his charity. 
She moved to the window and went out on the balcony, and 
answered his second call. 

~Leam) here!” 

He raised his face, and she saw that it was flushed, as 
though he had been drinking. 

“My white lily,” he said, speaking in Russian, ‘may I 
come up and enjoy the fragrance of your beauty in my own 
house? Or must I stand outside among these evil-smelling 
weeds °” 


276 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“Tt is your house, as you say,” she answered. “I cannot 
bar the door to you.” 

“T want you to open your heart to me,” he said. 

“T am heartless,” she told him, but he laughed down there 
in the glamorous twilight, and she could see the shine of his 
white teeth. 

He moved towards the doorway, and she heard his heavy 
footsteps stumbling up the narrow wooden stairs. The 
Turkish woman listened also to the sound of those foot- 
steps, with her head bent and a dark look on her face. Then 
she passed through the room and beyond a door leading 
to her own part of the house where Wanda had never been. 

Youssouf opened the outer door noisily and came into the 
room with his red fez at the back of his head. He stood 
there, unsteadily, gazing at Wanda, with passion in his eyes. 

“How wonderful you look!” he said. “It is good to see 
you here in my own room. It makes this place adorable! 
Are you happy? Has my woman served you well?” 

“We have been well served,” said Wanda. “It is pleasant 
Bere} 

She spoke bravely, but was afraid of this young Turk be- 
cause of his flushed face and his animal look as he stood 
there swaying a little, in a drunken way. 

“It’s my own house,” he said. “I am lord and master here. 
Not even my reverend mother has any authority over me in 
this little hiding place. It is here that I enjoy liberty and 
love.” He came nearer to her, and took her hand and 
raised it to his lips. 

“Poor little Russian girl!” he said, with a queer pity in his 
voice and a weak laugh. “You're afraid of me! You even 
hate me because you think I’m a dissolute fellow, and a 
bad Turk. You see that I am a little drunk to-night, and 
that frightens you. ... You needn’t be afraid. We will 
sit on the balcony together, and I will make love to you under 
the stars.” 

Wanda was glad he wanted to sit on the balcony. The 
sound of his voice there would not reach her grandfather, 
and perhaps if Youssouf was very drunk and silly she might 
escape from him more easily. 


Turkish Delight ZiT 


She let him take her by the hand and lead her out on to 
that wooden verandah which looked down on the Bosporus, 
and the British fleet lying there. Lights twinkled on those 
battleships, and from a tall mast on one of them one bright 
light made quick little flashes with some message to watching 
eyes. She wondered if it told any news of the British troops 
on Chanak. If only she could speak to him by the wire- 
less power of those ships and call out a message across the 
waters, to reach his heart. “Oh, my dear, if you do not come 
back quickly I shall be lost to you forever! Have you for- 
gotten our love? I have waited so long, and now I’m slip- 
ping into the deep pit with a young Turk who has made me 
his prisoner.” 

She would have sent that message to Irving Stoddart, as 
her last appeal. | 

Youssouf sat at her feet, and took off his fez, and leaned 
his head against her knees, looking up into her face. 

“Your eyes are like stars,” he said. “The beauty of your 
face has the shining whiteness of the crescent moon.” 

His European manners and way of speech learnt in the 
social life of Pera fell from him in this velvet darkness of 
an Oriental night. He was the Turk, with the poetry and the 
passion of his race. Wanda shivered, and he felt the cold- 
ness of her hands and warmed them between his own, which 
were hot. 

He raised his head impatiently when the servant woman 
came on to the verandah and spoke in Turkish. She carried 
a small box in her hands and smiled towards Wanda and then 
laid it in her lap. 

“What is it?’ asked Wanda. 

Youssouf untied a silken string which fastened the paper 
box. 

“Your beauty makes you beloved wherever you are seen,” 
he said. “The ladies next dcor have sent you this gift of 
sweetmeats for the beautiful Christian lady, with their good 
wishes.” 

He spoke again to the servant woman, who smiled and 
left the verandah, as noiselessly as she had come. 

~itas kind) said) Wanda. 


278 Little Novels of Nowadays 


She thought it strange also, because this gift was from 
women who had shrunk from her when she passed them, and 
had no friendly light in their eyes. 

“Give me one,” said Youssouf. “I am a baby with sweet- 
meats, and they will taste like nectar from your dear fin- 
gers.” 

She opened the box for him, and he took a little square of 
that sweetmeat which is called “Turkish Delight.” 

“Take one,” he said. “It’s good.” 

She took one, but in a few moments let it drop on to the 
floor beside her chair, because he had touched it first. 

Youssouf spoke of love again, and said that Turks loved 
women with greater reverence than Christians. It was 
because of this respect that Turkish families who kept the 
old tradition did not allow their women to expose themselves 
to the public gaze and show their beauty to any man who 
cared to gaze upon them. 

“There’s something to be said for that,” said Youssouf. 
“I have abandoned the old-fashioned habits of my people, 
and I have had amorous adventures with many Christian 
women, but deep down in my soul all the time is the old 
jealousy, the old instinct that the woman I really love must 
be unseen by other men, and kept spotless from the world.” 

“That is slavery for the woman,” said Wanda. 

Youssouf ate another sweetmeat, smiling into Wanda’s 
eyes. 

“Not slavery,” he said, “only the sweet captivity of per- 
fectiove.. 

He put his hands up and clasped her head, and pulled it 
down towards his face. 

“You and I,” he said, “could love like that. I’m going to 
make you love me like that, so that this little house will be 
your paradise. The door will be open always, but you will 
not wish to escape. You will have perfect liberty, but you 
will stay here, utterly happy, scornful of the outside world, 
desiring no other company but mine. Then I will come to 
you every day, on fire with love, as Iam now on fire—as I— 
am—now—on fire!” 

He rose a little on his knees, and his breath was hot, and 


Turkish Dean 219 


his face flushed, as Wanda could see in that glamorous dark- 
ness. He put his hand on her chair, and stood up, unsteady, 
swaying above her. 

“Oh, my love !”’ he said. 

He took a step forward with his hands outstretched, and 
Wanda shrank back in the chair. 

Suddenly he staggered and gave a cry. 

“IT am on fire!’ he said. “This love is burning me— 
burning !” 

He put both hands to his head and lurched backwards on 
the verandah, and then fell with a dreadful crash, over a 
little table which was used for coffee. 

He lay there writhing, and twice called out the name of 
Allah. 

Wanda rushed towards him and knelt down by his side. 
He was in a kind of convulsion, and his face was hideously 
distorted. He tore at his throat, and then, quite suddenly, 
lay still, and dead. 

Wanda gave a cry of fear, loud and piercing, and at the 
sound of it the servant woman came on to the verandah, 
and she, too, gave a loud, wailing cry. 

Suddenly she made a swift movement. She seized the 
box of sweetmeats which had been sent as a gift from the 
ladies next door, and threw them over the balcony into the 
weed tangled garden. Then she turned upon Wanda like 
a wild animal and tried to tear her face with claw-like 
hands. 

Wanda flung the woman away from her, so that she fell 
in a heap at the end of the verandah. 

A quiet voice spoke from the doorway leading from the 
inner room. 

“Did you call to me, Wanda?” 

It was the old grandfather standing there in his nightshirt, 
with a shawl over his shoulders. His thin white beard was 
touched by moonlight, and below the nightshirt his old limbs 
trembled. 

“Grandfather !” said Wanda. “We must go away. Now! 
This house is not safe for us. Be quick, grandfather! Get 
into your clothes! For God’s sake!” 


280 Little Novels of Nowadays 


He could not understand. But he was frightened, because 
of Wanda’s fear. It was the first time he had seen her 
afraid. 

She helped him dress, saying, “Be quick, be quick!” and, 
taking him by the hand, led him out of the house, where 
Youssouf lay dead on the open verandah. That night they 
wandered about the streets of Pera until the old man could 
walk no more, and lay down with Wanda’s arm about him, 
in the doorway of a Greek house. 

It was there that they were found by an English officer 
in charge of a patrol of military police. It was a friend of 
Stoddart’s and of mine, Lieutenant Fortescue, of the 
; bults.* 

He was shocked at the sight of this girl with the old man, 
homeless in the streets, and took them to a shelter house for 
refugees. Better than that, he found out the whereabouts 
of Irving Stoddart, and it was through his chivalry and a 
word to his general that Stoddart was brought back from 
one of the islands to which he had been sent for convales- 
cence. So he saw Wanda again. 

Of that meeting I shall not write a word, though I have 
heard from Stoddart enough to know the joy of it, and the 
agony of his self-reproach. After that illness at Chanak he 
had been too weak to write a letter to the girl who was des- 
perate for news of him. That seems to me good enough ex- 
cuse, but even now, knowing the story of her struggle, he 
blames himself for some of the misery she endured. 

She came to England as his wife a few months ago, after 
the evacuation of Constantinople by the Allied troops. Her 
poor old grandfather lies in the Christian cemetery of Pera, 
among many other exiles of his race, happy in his last hours 
because the girl was safe at last, and no longer menaced by 
the perils that lie in wait for Russian refugees in a cruel 
world. 

Wanda and I are good friends. She has told me the things 
I have written here with a gaiety that forgets their tragedy. 
But, as she says, her escape was a lucky chance, and in Con- 
stantinople there are thousands of Russian girls who can- 
not count on luck. 


XI: THE GAME OF POVERTY 


AM sorry now that I didn’t travel second class on the 

Aquitania, where I should have enjoyed the companion- 
ship of a very decent crowd of nobodies with more ideas 
than dollars, instead of taking a first-class berth and mixing 
up with millionaires, celebrities of the motion pictures, Rus- 
sian dancers, American bankers, international financiers, 
commercial travellers in a big way of business, newspaper 
proprietors, theatrical stars, Foreign Office gentlemen, soci- 
ety beauties and Janet Brandt, whose desire for the simple 
life led me into great trouble. 

I regretted having bought that first-class berth when I 
saw Paul Hirst standing below the second-class gangway 
with an old leather kit-bag dumped beside him and a wad of 
American magazines under his arm. 

He stood watching the crowd of passengers seething into 
the great ship as once I had seen him staring across a field 
in Flanders where death was having a great time, with a 
look of intense sadness in spite of a little ironical smile twist- 
ing the corner of his thin lips as though in mockery of life. 
I knew and liked the bitterness that sometimes gave a biting 
edge to this boy’s spoken thoughts, for it was in revolt 
against the world’s cruelty and revealed hatred of injustice 
and sham, sometimes too sharply, as is the way of youth 
before it gets tolerant by knowledge of self. 

They were bitter words he spoke when I clutched hold 
of his arm and said: “I’d no notion you were going back in 
this. little tub!” He stared at me for a moment without 
recognition, because he was in intense contemplation of the 
crowd about him. Then he gave a nervous, boyish laugh, 
and answered me: 

“Dives and his dancing women won’t be bothered with 
Lazarus behind the second-class barrier.” 

281 


282 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“My dear lad,” I told him, “Lazarus won’t be parched for 
a cup of cold water in the second class of this ship. It’s the 
lap of luxury.” 

“Yes,” he said in self-contradiction; ‘and I’m sick of 
luxury! I'd like to be going back steerage. Poverty is clean 
and real. After six weeks of New York hotels, at other 
people’s expense, I’m fed up with marble pillars—mostly 
sham—with painted hussies dancing to jazz bands, the. 
stench of over-rich crowds, and the damned callousness of 
those who have the dollars, while those who haven't get 
broken on the wheel of life.” 

“Is that how America strikes you?’ Iasked. “It’s a rather 
superficial view, isn’t it, and a bit ungenerous ?” 

His pale face flushed a little, and he gave his nervous 
laugh. 

“Oh, I know! I like the people. But too many of ’em 
are too rich, and American luxury is revolting. Especially 
when half the world is starving.” 

“You’re a Bolshevik!” I said, and he grinned at me and 
replied: 

“I’m a cankered soul, but not that.” 

I asked after his sister Pat—Miss Madcap—who had led 
me a rare dance one night in Paris, when she was out 
for any kind of fun like a wood nymph in a forest glade, 
though we were in the Place Pigalle when peace was de- 
clared. 

“Still safe!” said Paul Hirst, laughing at the thought of 
a girl who kept his rooms untidy and his sense of humour 
bright. “At least she hasn’t cabled that she has run off with 
an apache, or any little escapade like that.” 

“She'll be glad to get you back,” I told him, and I saw by 
the look in his eyes that his heart had bridged the Atlantic 
and was back in the Rue de la Pompe, where that sister of 
his teased him until he pulled her hair and made her squeak; 
interrupted his work (which was a writer’s job) by intro- 
ducing casual and disreputable friends; made omelettes 
which were wonderful when they did not get burned on the 
gas stove, and went on short rations with unbroken gaiety 
when funds were low, as often happened. 


The Game of Poverty 283 


“Not so glad as I’ll be to hear her impudence,” said Paul. — 

Those were the last words I could have with him before 
getting aboard at the warning note of the ship’s bell and the 
shouts of “all visitors ashore.” I waved to him over the 
first-class gangway, and then saw him from D deck as he 
went into his part of the ship, where he would be divided 
from me by impassable barriers of snobbishness and eti- 
quette. 

It was then that I saw Janet Brandt and her alarming 
aunt—alarming in spite of graciousness, because of the 
homage which she expected and obtained from all who knew 
her supreme position in the social world of America. I 
noticed how even there, on the Aquitania at the hour of 
starting, when all the first-class passengers were surging 
from deck to deck in search of cabins, baggage and stewards, 
with the first excitement of discovery and adventure, a clear 
passage was made by common consent when Miss Alice 
Brandt, with her niece, her two maids, and the bedroom 
steward, advanced to their suite on A deck. So I have seen 
crowds fall back with reverence when Queen Mary has 
passed among them across the lawns of Buckingham Palace. 
Behind the party two deck stewards carried enormous bou- 
quets of hothouse flowers, sent aboard as farewell tributes, 
and a fat stewardess waddled after them with cardboard 
boxes, obviously filled with similar beauty. 

Several elderly gentlemen bowed to Miss Alice Brandt as 
she passed by them, and one of them, whom I knew by sight 
as the president of a great commercial house of the Middle 
West, had the confidence to say in a hearty voice: “Delighted 
to see you on this ship, Miss Brandt!” 

Only by the slightest nod, which hardly disturbed the 
long osprey feather of her hat, did Miss Brandt acknowledge 
this salutation. I had not even that privilege, for when I 
found myself in the icy light of her grey eyes and bowed 
in remembrance of a dinner she had been pleased to give 
“in my honour,” as she had very graciously said, she looked 
through me and beyond me, as though I were utterly trans- 
parent. 

“That will save me future trouble,” I thought, knowing the 


284 Little Novels of Nowadays 


b' 

social strains of an Atlantic voyage; but at the same moment 
Janet Brandt caught sight of me, and gave me such a bright 
smile of recognition, so friendly in greeting, that I revised 
my opinion and decided to render homage to the aunt, in 
order to enjoy a chat with the niece. Not the first one, for 
at that dinner party in Fifth Avenue we had talked about 
books and plays, and I had been surprised by the intelligence 
of the girl when she got the better of a painful shyness. She 
even showed signs of a sense of humour, which might well 
have been stifled by the overwhelming luxury of her posi- 
tion and surroundings. 

“Who are they, I wonder?” said an unmistakably English 
voice behind me; “Madam Whoever-she-is looks as though 
she owned the ship!” 

“She easily could, that’s sure,” answered an American. 
“Miss Alice Brandt holds most of the old man’s property 
in trust for that niece of hers, who will be one of the richest 
young women in New York one of these days.” 

“Oh, the Brandts!’ said the English voice, and there was 
a note of respect in it, as at the mention of one of the reign- 
ing houses of Europe before crowns were cheap. 

There was the usual restlessness of passengers identify- 
ing their baggage piled up on D deck outside the golden gates 
of the elevator, collecting cables sent from shore, sending 
off wireless messages, arranging their dinner tables with the 
chief steward, or wandering about the ship from garden 
lounge to drawing-room, from library to smoking-room, 
astonished at the immensity and luxury of this sea-going 
palace in which they had bought a seven-days’ share. There 
were the usual meetings of unexpected friends and acquaint- 
ances marked down for avoidance. 

“Hallo, you here? I thought you were going in the Adri- 
aiiess 

“Didn't I meet you atthe Dutch Treat, Club 7; 

“What’s the number of your table? Oh, hard luck! I 
shall be a mile away from you.” 

The morning promenade up A deck or B was like a walk 
up Fifth Avenue in the season. It seemed to me that the 
Aquitania was filled with every one I had ever met in Lon- 


The Game of Poverty 285 


don and New York, and it was only by sneaking away to 
one’s state-room that one could avoid the incessant strain 
of conversational episodes with all these people who had 
nothing to do but talk, until some of them settled down to 
endless bridge parties; talk about German reparations— 
could they pay and would they pay; about the collapse of 
the European markets; about American policy under the 
new president—could they afford to “stay out,” or would 
they be forced to “come in’; about the new ambassador to 
London, the bankruptcy of Poland, the Bolshevik peril from 
Russia, the spiritual downfall of many peoples demoralised 
by war. These people talked well, and as I paced the decks 
hour after hour with big financiers, big business men, big 
newspaper men, I was enormously impressed by their sin- 
cerity, their anxiety, their breadth of view, their desire to 
help the world out of the awful mess into which it had 
plunged headlong. I was enormously impressed, and utterly 
weary of all such talk, because I had been talking it myself 
since the ending of the war, and there was nothing new to 
hear or to say about this tragedy of history. I wanted to 
get away from it awhile, to hear the laughter of youth 
rather than the lamentations of old age, which was mostly 
guilty of this state of things, and to talk pleasant nonsense 
rather than reiterate dreadful realities. 

My table companions were a relief for that reason. They 
chattered splendid foolishness, and we laughed outrageously 
at small jests like a pack of babies. Yet they were babies 
with a knowledge of life’s brutalities, tears and agonies, and 
this childishness was deliberate and philosophical. 

So, at least, it must have been with little Sonia Recoche- 
witz, the Russian dancer, who had escaped from the Bol- 
sheviks after frightful adventures before coming to New 
York, and who had had other adventures of an amorous 
kind, not unmixed with tragedy, if gossip did not lie. 

Yet she was wonderfully gay, with a natural playfulness 
which was communicated even to inanimate objects like her 
table napkin, which became, by a touch of her fingers, a white 
kitten, a lop-eared rabbit, a dancer like herself, with fantas- 
tic little steps to the music of the orchestra. She told us 


286 Little Novels of Nowadays 


Russian fairy tales, like a child who believed every word of 
them and was frightened of her own bogeys, and made up 
comical little stories of her own about the people at tables 
near us, who wondered at our glances and our gusts of hi- 
larity. | 

“Her mind has not grown up,” I thought for a while, 
until one or two things she said revealed sad understanding 
of life. Once she whispered to me as the others were laugh- 
ing very heartily at some jest of hers: “We are like the 
people of Boccaccio’s Decameron. Do you remember how, 
when plague was raging, they made merry company and put 
the thought of death away by naughty stories? Our world 
is plague-stricken—dying—and it’s well to laugh lest we 
should weep too much!” 

At our table sat a young Irishman, famous in America as 
a producer of motion pictures into which he put a sense of 
art and a strange reality of emotion. This Dennis O’Cal- 
loran played with words and thoughts in the drollest way, 
and was a very good mimic of any personality which amused 
him, which was not rarely. He seemed without a care, and 
happy in the success that had come to him after years of 
miserable poverty in New York, and I confess I thought 
him an empty-headed fellow until one night he stayed for 
hours in my cabin talking of the civil war in Ireland with 
a passionate emotion and idealism for which he was pre- 
pared to sacrifice all he had gained. He was coming back 
to enlist as a recruit in the Irish Republican Army, unless 
the British Government called off the Black-and-Tans and 
made a fair offer of liberty. I argued with him long and 
earnestly, put England’s point of view as well as I knew how, 
but could not damp down the blazing fire in his soul when 
he spoke of the heroic struggle of his people for their dream 
of freedom. His pale face flushed as he talked, and a long 
lock of black hair fell over his forehead; and the whole as- 
pect of the man was changed from that light-hearted table 
companion whom I had admired only as a humourist with an 
actor’s talent of grotesque mimicry. 

That evening, at dinner, he was in his best form, and his 
impersonations of “movie” stars rehearsing a new production 


\ 


The Game of Poverty 287 


made little Sonia Recochewitz laugh until she wept, and our 
two other table partners, who happened to be young Vis- 
count Mickleham of the Foreign Office and his sister Bea- 
trice, burst into such loud peals of mirth that I think we 
were rather a scandal in the dining saloon, and our respecta- 
bility was only saved by Mickleham’s title and position, for 
neither of which did he care one straw. I noticed angry 
glances about us from old fogeys at other tables, but then 
was caught by one glance which was not hostile, but amused 
and envious. 

It was when I met the eyes of Janet Brandt, who was sit- 
ting at a table placed rather separately and aloofly in an al- 
cove on the captain’s side of the saloon. She was much too 
far from us to hear a word of our nonsense, but the sound 
of our laughter reached her, and perhaps she had seen 
O’Calloran’s funny faces. She watched us with intent, 
smiling eyes, and, as I have said, there was a look on 
her face of wistful envy, as though she would have given 
much to join our party. She was startled when our eyes 
met, as if she had betrayed some secret, and a second later 
she answered some remark of her aunt demurely. 

Miss Alice Brandt wore some of her famous diamonds, 
and even across the spacious dining saloon of the Aqui- 
tania I saw the glint of them in her hair and round her long, 
thin neck. She sat very straight; an elegant, austere lady 
who must have been beautiful in her youth when she came 
up from Georgia as the sister of Jonathan K. Brandt, already 
founding the great fortune of his house and family. She 
had two guests at her table, one of them being George Hecht, 
the great financier, and the other a little fat old lady, scandal- 
ously decolletée, with artificial roses on her cheeks, who was 
doubtless Mrs. George Hecht. Not an amusing company 
for Janet, aged twenty, I guessed. They would talk about 
the cuisine on the Aquitania, with a little gossip about the 
passenger list, unbrightened by any glint of humour, and 
then, perhaps, discuss the disadvantages of Continental 
travel and the lack of sanitation in France and Italy. No 
wonder the girl had a stifled look, a wistfulness for some of 
the fun of youth, a desire, sometimes peeping through shy- 


288 Little Novels of Nowadays 


ness and fear, as I thought I had seen, to escape from smug- 
ness. 

Mickleham saw where my eyes were straying, and grinned 
ACeIHG. 

“Not a chance, old friend! The man who marries Janet 
Brandt will certainly be very rich, but he must also be 
very respectable, and offer a famous name in return for the 
millions. That’s the idea in taking her to Europe.” 

“What about you?” I asked. “Viscountess Mickleham 
doesn’t sound bad, and—you’re a pretty fellow!” 

“Yes, but not respectable,” said his sister Beatrice. 

“Mine is a family without morals or intelligence,” said 
Mickleham, with mock sadness. “My sister Beatrice drinks 
three cocktails before luncheon. That is merely a modern 
way of revealing inherited tendencies. We have always 
grabbed at the fun of life and risked the headache or the exe- 
cutioner’s axe. Hence our poverty. Bad, indeed, but not 
undeserved !” 


In going to my cabin that evening, I found a little note 
on the dressing-table. It was from Miss Alice Brandt, who 
graciously invited me to dine at her table on the following 
evening. “My niece,” she added, “will be equally pleased.” 
So, in spite of gazing at me as though I were as transpar- 
ent as a window-pane, the lady had condescended to be aware 
of my presence on board, and to distinguish me from the 
great horde who were enchanted by a nod from her. I won- 
dered what had caused me to be favoured in that way. I 
think it was Miss Janet’s favour which had brought me the 
invitation; but certainly, on the following evening, when I 
was extra careful with my dress tie and chose my very best 
cuff-links of imitation gold, in deference to the Brandt 
diamonds, the aunt was exceedingly gracious, and more 
talkative than the niece. I learnt that she had taken a house 
in Paris—Avenue Victor Hugo, of course—and she hoped 
I would spare time to call on them, and perhaps take Janet 
to see the right things. 

“Picture galleries, museums, and such like?” I suggested, 
and Miss Alice Brandt said: “You know them so well, I’m 


The Game of Poverty 289 


sure it would be a privilege for Janet’; but looking over at 
the niece I thought I saw a wish for something more excit- 
ing than picture galleries and museums; and she guessed 
my thought, for she smiled and then blushed. 

“T would like to see something of life in Paris,” she said; 
and she spoke that word “life” as though it held a great 
adventure. 

“Undoubtedly, my dear,” said Miss Alice Brandt; “we’re 
not going to be hermits, I assure you. The ambassador will 
bring us all the people worth knowing, and we have many 
friends over there already. The Hepworth Hobsons are 
there, the Brixhams of Milwaukee, the Comton Wackfords 
of Boston, and half New York.” 

“Yes; but, Aunt Alice,” said Janet, “those people are so 
familiar—and so rich. I want to geta glimpse of people who 
live cheaply and have all the fun, it seems tome. The young 
people who make a game of life.” 

Miss Alice Brandt was undoubtedly startled by this queer 
outburst. She looked at Janet with shrewd eyes, not un- 
kindly, but searchingly; and the girl avoided that gaze by 
fiddling with a trinket at her wrist. 

“I’m sorry you’re tired of old friends, Janet,” said Miss 
Brandt. “Some of them, I admit, are wearisome if one sees 
too much of them. However, there are young people in 
Paris who will be welcome to our house. Young Gold- 
mann, for instance, and his sister Ruth.” 

“Oh, insufferable!” said Janet ; but the words were spoken 
as a kind of whisper, and did not seem to reach Miss Alice 
Brandt, who continued her remarks. 

“He is great friends now, I am told, with the young Duc 
de Méricourt who called on us last year when we were in 
Long Island. I thought him charming, and I know he was 
greatly smitten with you, my dear.” 

She tapped her niece playfully on the wrist, but Janet 
pulled her arm away quickly, and said rather bitterly: 

“Smitten with my dollars, Aunt Alice. It was too trans- 
parent !” 

Miss Alice Brandt laughed. 

“Oh, well, a few dollars are useful to old families! But 


290 Little Novels of Nowadays 


youth is youth, all the same, and boys and girls must find 
their mates.” 

“Not in the money market,” said Janet. 

“You forget yourself, my dear!” said Miss Alice Brandt, 
very icily; and, turning away from her niece, she inquired 
whether England had changed much since the war. She 
had been told that young men were not so well behaved as 
before, and that the younger generation had lost some of its” 
courtesy. We pursued that inquiry for a little while, and 
then conversation languished. It was Miss Janet who re- 
vived it. | 

“How much you laugh at your table! Who is that little 
lady like a wood sprite! I would like to know her so 
much.” 

I mentioned the name Recochewitz, and Miss Alice Brandt 
looked severe. 

“T am told she is not at all respectable.” 

“I know nothing about her past,” I'said. “Now, in the 
present, she is a charming little creature, full of beautiful 
fancies and merry thoughts like fairy tales.” 

“Not a good companion for Janet,” said Miss Alice 
Brandt. “I’m not a snob, thank God, but naturally, with our 
name, we have to draw the line at gipsies.” 

“T like the gipsy heart,” said Janet. 

Miss Alice Brandt raised her eyebrows at me, as though 
to say: “Youth is very dangerous! We shall have to be 
careful of this girl!” It was a confidence inspired, perhaps, 
by a touch of grey each side of my forehead. We were two 
old fogeys who understood the perils of life. So I inter- 
preted her glance, and was reminded of middle age, which, 
sometimes, I was apt to forget. 

Outside, in the garden lounge, after dinner, Miss Alice 
Brandt, as a further sign of confidence, left us together while 
she went to fetch a wrap, or perhaps to read one of those 
French novels which she was careful to keep from her niece. 
For a time we chatted about music and the theatre season in 
New York. Then I asked Miss Janet how she looked for- 
ward to a year in Europe. 

She spoke suddenly with great frankness, overcoming her 


The Game of Poverty ZAT 


shyness, which was visible by the way she twisted her fin- 
gers in her lap. 

“Tt will be hateful! I’m being taken over on exhibition. 
The richest young woman in New York. . . . That house in 
the Avenue Victor Hugo—I know exactly what it will be 
like. There will be an incessant stream of American callers, 
bankers, business men, and American officers, afraid to talk 
straight to me, or be anything but formal and polite, because 
I’m a great heiress and beyond their reach. There will be 
some of the French aristocracy, like the Duc .de Méricourt, 
calling with hothouse flowers, sending their mothers to call 
on my aunt, smirking and scraping with a conventional gal- 
lantry—and all the time I shall miss the reality of life, and 
all the things that other girls have.” 

“What are those things?” I asked, amused. 

“Freedom, companionship, forgetfulness of money stand- 
ards, sincerity, and’’—she hesitated for a second or more, 
and then looked at me with a kind of forced courage, and 
added—“the chance of love.” 

“Lord!” I said, “no wonder your aunt looks worried if 
_ you talk to her like that!” 

“I don’t.” She laughed more merrily than I had heard her 
yet. “I’ve always lived in terror of Aunt Alice!’ 

She told me something of the way in which she had been 
brought up. A series of timid English governesses who tried 
to make a snob of her, and hid all the realities of life. They 
were abject in their worship of wealth. Then a school for 
young ladies in Massachusetts, presided over by a lady who 
gave orders to all the junior mistresses that Miss Janet 
Brandt was to be treated with special care and consideration. 
That meant that her mistakes were overlooked, her tempers 
excused, because her name was a good advertisement to the 
school. It meant that the mistresses toadied to her, and that 
many of the girls, though not all, made “a goose” of her, in 
order to be invited to her parties in the Avenue. 

“Horrible!” I said. “I wonder you survived it, and kept 
a sense of humour.” 

“T haven’t!’ she confessed rather miserably. “I’m noth- 
ing but a negative thing labelled with the dollar sign.” 


292 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“T think there’s something pretty positive about you,” 
I told her with a smile; and I think she took that for a com- 
pliment. 

She whispered to me, for her aunt was coming down the 
corridor, “I want to’ meet people on equal terms. Without 
the dollar sign labelled all over me. Will you help me? In 
Parisirs 

“T’ll have a try,” I said, rather cautiously ; but she made 
a pledge of it. 

“Promise sc 

“Yes; I promise.” 

It was a pretty foolish thing to promise, as I found out 
afterwards, when I was “‘in the basket,” as the French would 
say. And even that night, when I lay in my bunk thinking 
over the girl’s talk, I had a kind of premonition that if I 
kept that promise it would lead to trouble. There was some- 
thing unusual about Janet Brandt. Underneath her timid- 
ity, which made one’s first impression quite false, there was 
a spirit of adventure. Physically as well as mentally she was 
behind a mask. She had called herself a plain girl, though 
Mickleham, who ought to know, having been a great philan- 
derer, had called her once a belle laide. But just as through 
her rather sulky shyness there had appeared an ardent and 
sensitive quality of mind, so at times when her eyes were 
bright, a shadow seemed to pass from her face and reveal 
its beauty. Well, perhaps beauty is too strong a word, but 
I could understand a man younger than I being fascinated 
by the gipsy look of this Brandt girl. Gipsy was the word, 
and she had used it herself. “I like the gipsy heart,” she 
said, when speaking of Sonia Recochewitz. Old man Brandt, 
who had made all the dollars, had something of a gipsy look, 
from a portrait I had seen—by Sargent—in that house in 
Fifth Avenue. A bit of a bandit, too, I should say. 


On the fifth day of the voyage home, I received a special 
invitation to step across the mystic and material barrier di- 
viding the first from the second class. It was from Paul 
Hirst, who wrote that he had been nominated as chairman of 
the concert in aid of the seamen’s orphanage, and desired 


The Game of Poverty 293 


my support in this ordeal, provided that I could tear myself 
away from the millionaires and mighty people and con- 
descend to endure the society of second class nonentities of 
less wealth and more intelligence. I damned his imperti- 
nence and accepted the invitation. 

Certainly the level of entertainment was vastly superior to 
that which had already been given in the first class, and I 
agreed with Hirst that his crowd was more interesting than 
mine, because more youthful and rather at the beginning of 
life’s adventure, than approaching the fag end of the middle 
period. Still, as I told him, I would not exchange Sonia 
Recochewitz as a table companion with any of his particu- 
lar fancies. 

‘He was too nervous to argue with me, and I could see that 
underneath his apparent easy manner as chairman he was 
highly strung. Perhaps that accounted for the rather grim 
wit with which he prefaced some of the “turns,” and for 
some scathing passages, meant, no doubt, to be satirical and 
humorous, which he put into a speech in aid of the charity 
for which the concert was given. He had a natural gift of 
eloquence, heightened by the absolute sincerity of his words 
and the grace of his delivery. 

His theme was the suffering of the world’s children as the 
victims of war. It was they who paid, he said, in their 
bodies and in their souls, for the cruelties and greed of the 
old men who had brought civilisation to ruin. He gave some 
very moving pictures of starving and stricken childhood in 
Vienna, Poland, and other countries which he had visited 
as a newspaper reporter, and I saw how his words gripped 
his audience in that second-class saloon and stirred their 
emotions. Then he launched into a flaming satire against the 
Old Ones, as he called them, the great Somebodies of the 
world, with big stomachs under big waistcoats, and hearts 
as small as hazel nuts, and brains sharpened by cunning and 
craft in the pursuit of wealth. They were not neglectful of 
charity, but made use of it as a camouflage of their profiteer- 
ing, as a life insurance against the revolt of misery. 

“In this ship,” said Paul Hirst, “but not in the second 
class, there are many kings of commerce and lords of 


294- Little Novels of Nowadays 


labour. Last night they were asked to give to this charity 
for the children of those who were drowned in their service, 
the orphans of the seamen who carry their cargoes and their 
profits. How much did they subscribe? It worked out at 
five dollars a head. Nota great tax for men. of millions and 
women whose diamonds would rescue starving cities. Here 
in the second class, we should do better than that out of 
our small savings. Let us teach the first-class folk a lesson 
in charity!” | 

In some such words, though I don’t remember them 
exactly, Paul Hirst made his appeal, and though when he 
sat down there was loud applause, I fancy that some of his 
fellow-passengers looked uncomfortable, and even alarmed, 
by the tone ‘of .his speech, or, at least, that part of it.) (One 
of the ship’s officers was visibly annoyed, and afterwards 
spoke to me on the way back to the first class. 

“That fellow is a darned Bolshevik! If the first-class 
passengers get to hear of his attack there’ll be trouble for 
the company.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with the lad except the extrava- 
gance of youth,’ I answered. “He has been hipped by the 
misery he has seen about the world.” 

The ship’s officer gave a short, gruff laugh. 

“Misery! He can’t tell me anything about that. But I 
know how to keep my tongue behind my teeth, especially in 
a ship like this.” 

No report of Hirst’s speech came across to the first class, 
and there was no trouble as a result of it. The only person 
to whom I mentioned it was Miss Janet Brandt, who asked 
me how I had enjoyed the concert. 

“The concert was wonderful,” I told her, “and there was 
a speech by a young friend of mine which nearly broke up the 
whole show. Good thing the captain wasn’t there.” 

Then I described Paul Hirst to her, and gave the outline 
of his remarks. 

The girl seemed strangely moved, almost distressed. 

“T think he’s right,”’ she said. ‘‘When I read about all the 
agony of the world this kind of thing seems to burn my 
neck.” 


The Game of Poverty 295 


She caught hold of a rope of pearls about her neck, and 
gave them a little tug. 

“They’re beautiful,” I said, touching them. 

“T hate the sight of them,” she answered. 

Afterwards she told me she would like to meet Paul 
Hirst. 

“That’s easy,” I told her, without a thought of Hirst’s 
peculiar character. “The boy lives with his sister in Paris. 
I can bring you together one day.” 

“T hope you will,” said Janet Brandt. “As part of your 
promise.” 

“What promise ?” 

She was vexed because I had forgotten the promise to 
show her “life” in Paris; life more living than that in pic- 
ture galleries and museums, and youth whom she could meet 
without being “labelled with the dollar sign.” 

“I can see myself getting into trouble with Aunt Alice,” 
I said chaffingly ; and that seemed to amuse her, for she gave 
a queer little laugh and looked at me with what I called her 
gipsy face. 

“Aunt Alice needn’t know. After all, I have a right to 
my own adventures.” 

“Certainly,” I agreed; “I’m all for liberty.” 

That was the last word but one I had with the girl before 
she and her aunt went off the ship at Cherbourg. The last 
word was when Miss Alice Brandt allowed me to shake 
hands with her, or rather, to take her cold, white hand in 
mine for a moment, and when Janet touched me on the arm 
and whispered as she passed. The word was “Remember!” 
—King Charles’s last word on the scaffold. 

Hirst went off at Cherbourg with some other passengers 
from the second class, and I was able to exchange a few 
words with him as he stood on the tender, looking up to the 
castle heights of the ship he had just left. 

“Give my love to Pat!” I shouted. 

He could not see me among the faces leaning over the side 
of the lower deck through a wet darkness shot by bewilder- 
ing lights. He recognised my voice, and shouted an answer. 

“See you in Paris soon!” 


296 Little Novels of Nowadays 


It was, however, more than two months later that I went 
to Paris from London, and some weeks after that before I 
had an opportunity of seeing Paul Hirst and his mad- 
cap sister—the adorable Pat. 

It was Pat who opened the door of the appartement on the 
fifth floor of a dirty old house at the bad end of the Rue 
de la Pompe. Though it was six in the afternoon, she was 
in her dressing-gown—once of elegant pink silk, but now less 
elegant because of ink stains and a tattered lining. Her 
orange-coloured hair was loose over her shoulders, and her 
feet were bare except for one carpet slipper. The other lay 
abandoned up the passage. 

She was not at all abashed to see me standing there, but 
much surprised. 

“An ancient ghost!” she cried. “I thought it was Paul 
back from his hopeless quest.” 

“What quest?’ I asked, following her into the passage. 

“Work. He lost his job after the American trip, and now 
is a free-lance again. You know what that means. Rigid 
economy and only occasional orgies to maintain a sense of 
humour.” 

“Don’t you put on any clothes?” I asked her, looking at 
her little white foot on the cold oilcloth. 

“Oh, I’m quite decent,” she answered ; “don’t let your sense 
of propriety suffer any unnecessary shock. I’ve been mend- 
ing an evening frock, into which I shall presently jump, if 
you'll keep an eye on the kettle in the back kitchen. I dine 
to-night with a Russian prince. He has saved up ten francs 
for a banquet in my honour.” 

“Ts he the latest?’ I asked. “What has happened to the 
young French lieutenant who was sick with passion for you 
last time I was here?” 

“Oh, Francois? He’s still sick!” 

“You’re a ruthless woman!” I told her. “La Belle Dame 
sans Merci.” ! 

“T give a lot of fun to my friends,” she answered calmly. 
“And so many of them love me that I hate to hurt any of 
them by showing preference to one.” 


99 


The Game of Poverty 297 


“My dear kid,” I said, in a fatherly way, “it’s time you 
settled down as a wife and a mother.” 

“Not on your life,” said Miss Pat. “Give me liberty or 
give me death. Because, I have to mend Paul’s shirts and see 
that he keeps his nails clean and his soul bright. God has 
laid that duty upon me 

“And do you mind going into that cupboard and casting 
your blear eye on the kettle while I slip into my frock? My 
Russian prince hasn’t known me long enough to enjoy the 
privilege of my dressing-gown.” 

“He'll tame you all right if he’s fool enough to marry you,” 
I told her. “All Russians are Tsars under their skins.” 

“I want to be tamed,” said Pat; “but ‘oh! the difference 
to me!’ as the poet sings.” 

She whisked off to her bedroom, where she sang the latest 
chansons of the boulevards in a clear, high voice, while I 
burnt my fingers with a kettle on an oil-stove, and made 
some tea which had been put ready on a side-table. Then 
there was a ring at the bell, and I let in Paul, who did not 
seem in the least surprised to see me, and without formal 
greeting growled that he had forgotten the cursed latch- 
key again. 

_ He was in a savage temper with life generally. His work 
in America had not pleased his editor, and he had been 
flung off the paper, which he had served for two years or 
more. Now he was writing short stories, which no one 
would buy. “They’re too good,” he told me, with the calm 
arrogance of youth. “I write about the truth of things, 
and, of course, that’s the most unmarketable commodity.” 

He was shabbier than usual, and rather thinned down, I 
thought. Probably he was going without proper food, so 
that Pat might get her share of fun. I had known him do 
that before, in the old days, though he kept it a dark secret 
from Pat, who would have starved to death rather than let 
him go hungry for her sake. 

“Pat looks fine,” I said. ‘‘More beautiful than before, 
and just as merry as ever.” 

“Oh, she’s all right,” he said casually. “Only about fifteen 


2930" Little Novels’ of Nowadays 


poor swine hanging round her for any pearl of wit she likes 
to throw at them. I marvel at their patience and long- 
suffering.” 

“One day,” I warned him, “she'll fall head over heels in 
love, instead of playing Beatrice to every Benedick.” 

“Don’t you worry,” said Paul. “She knows how to take 
care of herself, and I keep a sharp eye on the hussy.” 

“Oh, you do, do your” exclaimed Pat herself, who over- 
heard the last remark, and now appeared in her evening 
frock of black silk, cut low at the neck and short at the © 
skirt, as the fashion then was, though frocks have grown 
long in Paris now. 

She rumpled her brother’s hair, pulled his tie tighter, and 
kissed him on the forehead. 

“The simple youth thinks his wicked sister can’t escape 
his jealous eye. He thinks she hasn’t escaped a thousand 
times to most dangerous adventures of which he knoweth 
nothing.” 

“I can’t prevent you playing the giddy goat, that’s cer- 
tain,’ growled Paul; but I knew this brother and sister well 
enough to be sure of their devotion to each other. 

The Russian prince came; a pale-faced, whimsical fellow, 
who spoke French perfectly and English hardly at all. He 
was a clerk in some Paris warehouse, and horribly poor, 
but not at all unhappy, as he confessed, because poverty in 
Paris seemed to him more amusing than his old days of 
luxury in St. Petersburg before the war, and enormously 
more amusing than the stench and filth of trenches of the 
Russian front, followed by the terrors of Bolshevism. 

“Where shall we diner” he asked Pat. “I have no less 
than twenty-five francs for this evening’s frolic.” 

“Twenty-five!” cried Pat in French, without a trace of 
English accent. “Why, we shall be able to have wine with 
a label on it!” 

They went off together like children to a school treat ; and 
Paul dined with me separately, near the Luxembourg Gar- 
dens. After we had discussed the state of Europe, the cost 
of living in Paris, and the chance of revolution in England 
—Paul taking the gloomiest view of everything—I put 


The Game of Poverty 299 


into words a thought that I had had at the back of my 
mind. 

“There’s a girl I know in Paris who’s rather lonely. May 
I bring her along to see Pat one day?” 

“Why not?’ said Paul. “Pat knows a whole bunch of 
girls who play a lone hand. Some of ’em feed with us at 
Suzanne’s ; you know, the cheap eating-house in the Rue de 
la Victoire. Bring her along one night. It’s a rowdy crowd, 
but good fun, and liberty of speech.” 

“Splendid!” 

It was of Janet Brandt that I was thinking, and of the 
promise I had made her more than two months before, on 
the Aquitania, I had only had one glimpse of her since I had 
been in Paris, and that was in the Bois, where she was driving 
with Miss Alice Brandt in an expensive looking limousine. 
They stopped where the avenue goes up to the lake, and 
greeted a young man, obviously French by the cut of his 
clothes and the vivacity of his manner, who was strolling 
along the sidewalk with two Russian wolf-hounds. He 
stepped into the road with bared head, as though in the pres- 
ence of royalty, and when Miss Janet held out her hand 
through the window he put it to his lips. She laughed a little 
at that gesture, and withdrew her hand hurriedly, as it 
seemed to me. Miss Alice Brandt sat up very stiff and 
straight, and looked like a French grande dame. As for 
Janet, of whom I had only a fleeting glance, it seemed to 
me that she was rather pale, and not much amused with 
herself, as the French would say. That impression was 
confirmed when I called the next day in the Avenue Victor 
Hugo, where they were handsomely installed with English 
servants and a French chef, and Louis XVI furniture and 
decorations. 

“You are magnificent here,” I said to Miss Alice Brandt. 
“It’s. marvellous how quickly you have arranged every- 
thing.” 

“We miss the home comforts,” she said, as though living 
in a makeshift place. “But it’s not bad, and I dare say we 
can put up with it for the season The dear Ambassador has 
been very kind.” 


300 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“And you?’ I asked Janet. “You like Paris?” 

“I have been in the picture galleries and museums,” she 
said with an elusive smile, in which I fancied a reproach. 

“And you have plenty of company ?” 

“Quite a traffic of old friends,” said Miss Alice Brandt. 
“The Coppins, of Greenwich, the Arkwrights, of Albany, 
Mr. Henry J. Budd, Mary Schwarz and her little niece, 
General Hooper—any number of New Yorkers. We have 
also met some charming French families, the old noblesse.” 

“Among them the Duc de Méricourt, I presume? I see 
he is in. Paris.” 

Miss Alice looked at Janet in a furtive way, and then 
turned to me again. 

“A most delightful young man and most attentive! His 
mother and I have become quite confidential. She is the 
sweetest old creature.” 

“She frightens me,” said Janet. “I can’t bear the way 
she stares at me through her lorgnettes, nor the patronising 
way in which she taps my hand and calls me charmante 
mademoiselle !” 

Some of the “traffic” came into the drawing-room for 
tea. Among them the Arkwrights, of Albany, General 
Hooper, and several British and American officers and their 
wives. A kindly good-natured crowd, but perhaps a shade 
too formal in their manners both to Miss Alice Brandt and 
to Janet, who seemed uninterested in their company. 

I had some minutes of private talk with the girl, and she 
confessed her boredom. 

“Aunt Alice forgets I’m only twenty! All these people are 
very kind, but they are i 

I helped her out with an unfinished sentence. 

“Middle-aged and frumpy, eh?” 

“I’m becoming a frump myself!” she declared, with a sigh 
that came up from her shoes. 

“What about Paris? Don’t you find it good fun?” 

“Paris is wonderful,” said Janet, “but I only see it as 
though I sat in the stalls of a theatre. I want to get into its 
life a little. Into some of the rooms behind the windows 
in back streets.” 


The Game of Poverty 301 


“Been to any French restaurants?’ I asked. 

She laughed and said, “The Ritz and the Continentals. 
The people there were all from the Ritz-Carlton and the 
Vanderbilt.” 

It was then I asked her if she would like to come to a queer 
little place one night where she would get to know some of 
the real life of Paris—students, writers, working-girls, a 
cosmopolitan crowd of impecunious youth. 

Her eyes lit up at the idea of it, and when I asked, “What 
about your aunt?” she seemed to think that there would be 
no trouble if I asked Miss Brandt’s permission on her 
behalf. | 

“She thinks the world of you.” 

“It’s my grey hairs,” I said; “they give austere aunts a 
sense of security, alas!” 

Miss Janet was not wrong in her idea. When I asked 
Miss Brandt whether I could conduct her niece to a museum, 
and take her to a little dinner later, she was delighted; and 
was pleased to say that she would trust Janet to my care and 
discretion with the utmost confidence. 

I am bound to confess, however, that my conscience 
troubled me with unusual prickings when after a brief visit 
to the Carnavalet Museum, in which I tried to remember 
all that I had forgotten about the French Revolution, I took 
the girl in the Metro—for the first time in her life she trav- 
elled underground and did a little strap-hanging, which 
seemed to amuse her vastly—and conducted her to the 
Restaurant Julie, in a little street off the Boulevard Mont- 
parnasse. I could not understand this mental trouble of 
mine, because the little eating-house was perfectly respect- 
able, as was the company we were likely to find there; but 
my mind became weighted with the idea of the Brandt 
dollars. 

“Tf this girl dies from ptomaine poisoning out of a tin of 
sardines,’ I thought, “the United States will demand my 
body for the torturers.” 

Janet looked as though she were out for tremendous 
adventure, but before we went through the swing doors, 


302 Little Novels of Nowadays 


with their pink curtains, she put her hand on my arm and 
gave me a kind of royal command. 

“Don’t introduce me to any one as Janet Brandt. Let me 
be Janet Gordon for once. It’s my mother’s name, and 
doesn’t scare people with such a noise of dollars.” 

“Just as you like,” I said; and it was as Janet Gordon that 
I presented to her Pat Hirst and Paul, who were already . 
seated at one of the little tables, which, presently, as the 
door swung to and fro, became crowded with a queer col- 
lection of young men and women, most of whom seemed to 
know each other. 

Pat Hirst was in one of her riotous moods, and her behav- 
iour would have been scandalous if the company had been 
easily scandalised, which undoubtedly they were not. Mak- 
ing a place for Janet by her side, without ceremony, she took 
up her knife and fork, banged their handles on the table, 
and shouted out, “A boire!’’—signifying a desire for drink— 
to a French waiter with the face of a gargoyle of Notre 
Dame, illuminated by a sense of humour. Her next per- 
formance was to break a piece of bread from her roll and 
throw it with unerring aim at a one-armed young man— 
French by the look of him—at the other side of the room, 
who turned the other cheek when it struck him, and replied 
very skilfully with a rose from a glass on his table. The 
petals scattered over Pat’s red hair, and the effect of this 
retort courteous was received with applause by the company. 

“C'est chevaleresque, cal’ said a girl, who was obviously 
Russian—an unmistakable type to me—and a young lady of 
distinction, I guessed, in spite of a cheap frock, judging 
from the way several young men, Russian like herself, 
bowed to her when they came in, and kissed her hand before 
taking their seats at other tables. 

Paul introduced me. 

“Princess Maniloff. You’ve met her brother.” 

I guessed that it was the brother who had taken Pat to a 
banquet with twenty-five francs; and guessed rightly, for he 
came in later, and bowed very low to Miss Pat before 
making a grimace of comical despair because there was no 


The Game of Poverty 303 


room at her table. Pat was not at all in a sympathetic mood 
with him, nor in a conversational mood with any one. She 
was in a singing mood, and gave voice to some poilus’ songs 
to which, in the evil and heroic years, the French troops 
had gone marching up the roads. The one-armed young 
Frenchman, who had been hit by her bit of bread, took up 
the chorus of them, beating time with his soup spoon; and 
some of the other girls joined in, laughing between the 
verses at Pat, who had made her table napkin into a poilu’s 
cap and put it jauntily on one side of her carroty hair, look- 
ing as pretty as any Miss Impudence I have seen. | 

Paul frowned at her, and growled-a rebuke. 

“This isn’t the Folies Bergéres. I can’t hear to eat my 
soup. Can’t you be serious for once?” 

“Jamais de la vie!” said Pat, raising a glass of the vilest 
vin ordinaire and reciting a verse of Ronsard’s in praise of 
the grape. She seemed the most popular person. From 
many of the other tables young men of diverse nationalities 
raised their glasses and kissed them to her in salutation, and 
I noticed how, now and then, girls came to her table to 
whisper a few words, to touch her hand, to give a little tug 
at her red hair. 

I watched Janet—Janet Gordon, as I had called her—in 
this queer company—amazingly queer it must have been to 
her. She sat very still and silent opposite Paul Hirst, who 
had not yet spoken a single word to her, glancing at the 
people about her, taking in all the scene, with a curious smile 
of interest and enjoyment; and occasionally, I thought, as 
her eyes rested on Pat, with admiration and amazement. 
Once she burst into a low-toned laugh as Pat held the waiter’s 
hand, the gargoyle-faced old fellow, and coaxed him to 
bring her another portion of asperges. I noticed that Janet 
wore a plain black dress, without a single jewel about her, 
as though she were afraid of being detected as a rich young 
woman ; and I noticed also that Paul, though he was as silent 
as herself, studied her now and then when she was not 
aware of his gaze. Presently he spoke to her: 

“Been in Paris long?” 


304 Little Novels of Nowadays 


Janet was startled by his sudden advance towards con- 
versational exercise, and flushed rather vividly with her 
usual shyness, but answered readily: 

“About two months. I’m American.” 

“So I guessed,” said Paul. “I was over there two months 
ago. What boat did you cross in?” 

She told him, and he seemed surprised. 

“So was I. I don’t remember you at all.” 

He took it for granted that she had been a second-class 
passenger, and I was amused when she did not undeceive 
him. 

“Your speech was very interesting,” she said. 

“Think so?” said Paul doubtfully. “I loathe speaking. 
Always say the wrong things.” 

“You said the right things then.” 

I did not hear any more of this conversation because I 
found myself engaged in an argument with Princess Mani- 
loff on Russian literature, in which I was hopelessly routed. 
By this time her brother had found a corner at our table next 
to Pat, with whom he flirted in a whimsical way. I heard her 
offer to mend his shirts as a reward for the banquet he had 
given her. This offer inspired by the frayed condition of 
his cuffs, touched him almost to tears, and he vowed that no 
such charity had been known on earth since some Russian 
saint, whose name I have forgotten. 

It was ten o’clock when I turned to Janet and reminded 
her that it was time to go. 

“Why such hurry?” asked Paul in his grumpiest tone; 
“Miss Gordon and I seem to agree about most things, and 
it’s a pity to break the unusual spell.” 

“Another half-hour!” cried Janet, like a pleading child. 

“Remember your aunt,” I said. 

“Oh, aunts mustn’t be humoured,” said Pat, intervening. 
“My young life was nearly wrecked by an aunt. We’re to 
have some music presently at Yvonne’s flat.” 

“Who’s Yvonne?” I asked. 

She pointed to a handsome, white-faced girl who was put- 
ting one of the little French rolls into her handbag. 


The Game of Poverty 305 


“That girl like a saint in a Burne-Jones window. She 
plays divinely, and doesn’t get enough to eat.” 

Janet Brandt looked distressed. 

“Ts that why she is saving her bread?” 

“Oh, lots of us do that,” said Pat, “‘when funds are low. 
One doesn’t waste good food if one belongs to a really good 
society like this. The Intellectuals, don’t you know.” 

Janet looked at me with an inquiring glance, as though to 
ask, “Is that true or a joke?’ 

“La vie de Boheme,’ I said. “They make a’ game of 
poverty.” 

After that we said good-bye, but not before Paul had 
growled out a sheepish invitation to Janet. | 

“There’s always a cup of tea going in the Rue de la Pompe. 
Any old time you feel like it. We might continue our dis- 
cussion one day. Pat’s always pleased to have callers— 
aren’t you, Pat?” 

Pat pulled her brother’s ear. 

“Youre not, sulky one. You hate ’em like poison.” 

Then she turned to Janet with a smile that was irresistible. 
“Tf Paul invites you, I’m your handmaiden. I’d love you to 
come, Janet Gordon.” 

On the way back to the Avenue Victor Hugo, Janet held 
my arm tight in hers and repeated again and again that she 
had enjoyed every minute of the evening. 

“Tt was all wonderful,” she said. “Likea fairy tale. How 
splendid to be like that. I loved what you said, ‘They make 
a game of poverty.’ ” 

“It’s the only way,” I told her. “Otherwise poverty is 
hell.” 

She pulled something out of her pocket and said, “I’ve 
taken this as a souvenir,” and showed me, to my amazement, 
a petit pain, like the roll which the girl Yvonne had slipped 
into her bag. Then she said one eH those queer things which 
startled me. 

“T’d like to need it one day. I agree with your friend that 
no one knows life who doesn’t know hunger.” 

“What friend is that?” I asked; and she said: 


306 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“Paul, who is like the Apostle.” 

“Tf the old Paul was as grumpy in his youth as this one,’ 
I remarked, but before I could finish my sentence the foot- 
man had opened the wrought-iron door in the Avenue Victor 
Hugo, and I had to say good-night. The girl pressed my 
hand, and I felt that her own was hot, as though there were 
a fever in her, when she thanked me “a thousand times” for 
the pleasure I had given her. 

The next time I saw her was a month later—I had been 
to Austria to study a bankrupt state—at a reception given 
by Miss Alice Brandt, which was quite a brilliant affair, as 
I saw when I drove up in a Paris taxi and found myself in 
a stream of many handsome automobiles. The American 
colony was attending in great strength, and there was alsoa 
number of distinguished people in French society, including 
the Duchesse de Chateaubriand, the Marquis de Polignac, 
the Baron de Rézé, the Duc de Méricourt, and M. Jules Cam- 
bon. The British Ambassador and his lady and several mem- 
bers of the Embassy were early arrivals. Miss Alice Brandt 
received her guests, and the Brandt diamonds glittered in her 
hair and about her neck and wrists, so that she looked very 
imposing. Janet stood by her aunt’s side in a white frock, 
which I suppose was a French model of extreme cost, though 
I know nothing of these things and only admired her sim- 
plicity. Something had happened to change her appearance. 
She was thin, I thought, and rather worn, like a girl at the 
end of a harassing season; but there was a new brightness in 
her eyes, and her whole manner was more vivacious and 
assured. She was no longer the timid, shrinking girl I had 
first met in Fifth Avenue. 

I could have no talk with her beyond a greeting, for many 
guests crowded round her, and afterwards the Duc de Méri- 
court, with what seemed to me a definite claim to her com- 
pany, strolled away with her into a quiet alcove. 

It was quite late in the evening, when some of the guests 
had gone, that Miss Alice Brandt drew me on one side and 
said, “I’m worried about Janet.” 

“In what way?” I asked. . 

“T can hardly say,” replied Miss Brandt. “The girl is a 


A 


The Game of Poverty 307 


mystery tome. She has lost her appetite—doesn’t eat enough 
to feed a bird—and she slips away in the afternoons, and 
sometimes in the evenings, without letting me know anything 
of her whereabouts. Sometimes I think all kinds of dread- 
ful things. But I’m sure she is a good girl, and she only 
laughs at me when I ask for her confidence.” 

“She seems very merry and bright,” I said, looking over 
to the alcove where she stood laughing with the Duc de 
Méricourt. 

“That worries me most of all,” said Miss Brandt. “She 
comes back from some of her mysterious expeditions— 
exploring Paris, she calls them—with her eyes strangely 
alight and her cheeks flushed, and a strange, unnatural 
gaiety. But at dinner she refuses all her food, and just picks 
and pecks at it.” 

“She seems attracted by the Duc de Meéricourt,” I said, 
glancing over to the little group in the alcove again. 

Miss Alice Brandt took me by the wrist and drew me 
closer. 

“My dear,” she said, “the young man has. set his heart on 
her, but she treats him as a figure of fun. He is most pa- 
tient and persistent.” 

I confess that I wondered whether love of the Brandt dol- 
lars were the cause of the young man’s patience; but I did 
not reveal this thought to Miss Brandt. 

_It was Viscount Mickleham who gave me a clue to some 
of Janet’s private adventures during the past months. That 
young man turned up preposterously late, shook hands with 
Miss Brandt, bowed in his elegant, smiling way to Janet, 
who blushed exceedingly at the sight of him, and prepared 
to walk downstairs again and so out to some more amusing 
company, when he caught sight of me. 

“So you’re back again, you old panderer!” he exclaimed. 

I tucked my arm through his, and asked what the deuce 
he meant by calling me names like that. | 

“What about Janet Gordon and her double life?’ he 
asked. “You will get into trouble about that little plot!” 

“Plot be hanged!” I said. “And, anyhow, what do you 
know about Janet Gordon?” 


308 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“T called on the adorable Pat, and found her at tea with 
a young person, whom she introduced as Janet Gordon—as 
poorly dressed as a couturiére in a poor way of business. I 
recognised her instantly as Janet Brandt, and wondered what 
the game was. She went as white as my shirt-front when 
she saw me.” 

“Did you give her away?” I asked him; but he shook his 
- head and said, “I try to play the game like a little gentle- 
man. If a girl calls herself any old thing I regard it as her 
affair, and not mine.” 

I was astonished that he knew Pat Hirst, and told him 
so, to his great amusement. 

“My dear lad,” he said, “I’ve been in love with her for 
three years. I went to the United States to forget her impu- 
dence, and came back again to warm my soul at her red 
hain’ 

“Why don’t you marry the child?” I asked him frankly, 
as an old comrade; and he answered by saying, ““Why doesn’t 
the child marry me? Because she’s not such a blooming 
fool. A penniless peer, with no visible means of subsistence 
without the help of money-lenders, is no catch for a girl 
who earns her living and gets a lot of fun out of the 
game.” 

He walked up towards the Etoile, while I burrowed into 
the Metro, and made my way to the Rue de la Pompe. 

Pat was alone, reading a French novel, smoking a bee 
caporal and stewing some coffee on the oil stove. 

“What’s all this about Janet Gordon?” I asked, and star- 
ing at me blankly she replied: 

“What's all what?” 

“How many times has she been here since I left?” 

“Pretty .often,” said. Pat, , “Any objection? -)Paubeas 
madly in love with her. They talk idealism, socialism, and 
all that kind of pap until I get tired. I’m afraid Ill lose 
little brother Paul. He’s badly hit this time.” 

“Good God!” I said, in a sudden panic, thinking of Miss 
Alice Brandt and all the Brandts on Fifth Avenue and Wall 
street: 

“You seem worried,” said Pat. “Ladle out that coffee and 


The Game of Poverty 309 


pull your nerves together. Paul has gone for a long tramp 
to dream of his lady. Presently he’ll be home and write a 
sonnet.” 

“Look here,” I said, “do you know who that girl is?” 

“No scandals,” said Pat reprovingly. “In our sphere of 
life we live and let live. There’s nothing wrong with Janet 
except poverty, and an ill-tempered aunt who wants to keep 
her caged.” 

“Poverty !” I exclaimed. 

“That's no crime,” said Pat. “I hate to think of that 
child not getting enough to eat. She’s ravenous when we 
invite her to pot-luck and won’t waste the smallest crumb 
of bread.” 

I was too astounded to make any comment on those 
remarks. 

Pat went on to tell me that Janet Gordon was a student 
of music in Paris, who led an unhappy life with the queru- 
lous aunt, and could not afford to buy herself any little 
trinkets or frocks. 

“She always wears the same old black slip, and was fright- 
fully excited the other day when I gave her a little brooch 
worth about three francs.” 

“Pat,” I said, “you’re a creature without nerves, so you 
won't get excited when I give Janet Gordon away. Her real 
name is Janet Brandt.” 

“That doesn’t interest me in the least,” said Pat. ‘‘What’s 
in a name?” 

“A deuce of a lot,” I said, annoyed that my revelation had 
been without effect. “In this particular case there are God 
knows how many million dollars in that name. Haven’t 
you heard of the Brandts, of New York—the Brandt mil- 
lions? Well, Janet is the heiress who will get most of them 
when she becomes twenty-one.” 

Pat laughed loud and long, and then asked me not to pull 
her leg so late at night. Nothing would induce her to believe 
that I was talking in sober earnest, and she passed the joke 
on to Paul when he let himself in with his latch-key. 

Paul smiled grimly. 

“Janet’s one of us,” he said. “She knows the game of 


310 Little Novels of Nowadays 


poverty all right. Down to its bare bones, and, like me, she 
hates the rich world, with its infernal inequalities.” 

“Doing anything to-morrow night?” I asked. 

He told me that he had nothing particular to do, and didn’t 
object to dining with me. 

We dined at the Griffon, which he thought was a tourists’ 
trap, and then strolled with me through the Champs Elysées 
towards the Avenue Victor Hugo. . On the way he told me 
that he had a rather decent job in view, and if it came off he 
might change his state in life. 

“In what way?” I asked. 

“The matrimonial way,” he said, rather sheepishly, and 
hastened to explain that Pat would never marry so long as 
he was a bachelor. She considered it her sacred duty to look 
after him. That was very rough on her; and, anyhow, un- 
less he married now he never would. 

“A nice girl?’ I inquired; and he said, in a mystic way: 

“The soul I’ve been searching for—Janet Gordon.” 

“Look here,’ I said sharply, stopping under the trees of 
the Champs Elysees, “what I told Pat was true. Janet 
Gordon is Janet Brandt—heiress to millions—too rich for 
you, Paul; out of your world.” 

Something in my voice frightened him. Yet he would 
not believe me. He would not believe me until something 
happened outside the house in the Avenue Victor Hugo. 

It was after dinner, and Miss Brandt was going to the 
opera with her niece and young De Méricourt, as I knew 
from what they had told me the night before. Their car 
was waiting for them, and I spoke to the driver: 

“Is Miss Brandt starting now?” 

“In half a minute, I guess,’ he answered. 

Paul and I stood beyond the light of the street lamp, and 
I said “Wait!” He was perfectly silent, and I saw that his 
face had gone white and that he had a sullen look. In less 
than half a minute a footman came out with some rugs, 
which he put into the car. Then two ladies and a young 
man came through the wrought-iron door and stood for a 
moment while one of the fadles! “Larteudpe on her long 
white gloves. 


The Game of Poverty 311 


“Tt is a charming evening,” said the Duc de Méricourt. 

“Too good to go to the opera,” said Janet. 

She stood full in the lamp light, which shimmered on her 
rose-coloured opera frock. She was wearing a little diamond 
crown, like a princess. 

“We can talk between the acts,’ said De Méricourt. 
“Music is the best inspiration of pleasant thought.” 

Paul made a sudden step forward, and I put my hand on 
his arm and said, “Steady, old man!” His movements made 
Janet turn her head as she was about to follow Miss Brandt 
into the car. I am sure she saw Paul. I think their eyes 
met and spoke to each other. Janet seemed to smile at him 
in a pleading way; though perhaps that was only my fancy, 
for a moment later she disappeared into the darkness of the 
car. Young De Méricourt followed, and they drove away. 

“Well, Paul,” I said, “seeing is believing.” 

He swore a violent oath, and said something under his 
breath about having been fooled or tricked, I forget which. 

“She was playing the game of poverty,” I said, “as a new 
experience. A foolish thing to do.” | 

He shook my hand off his arm roughly,.and told me it was 
all my damned fault; and before I could argue the matter, 
turned on his heel and strode off at a quick pace down the 
Avenue. The poor lad was hard hit. Janet’s gipsy look 
and some lure in the girl had caught him out, and he knew 
now, as I had told him, that she was out of his world, unat- 
tainable, because of a mountain of dollars between them. 


Three weeks in Berlin interrupted my knowledge of this 
little drama in Paris, and I had to pick up the threads again 
when I came back. It was red-headed Pat who mended the 
broken threads in my knowledge and gave me something of 
a panic. 

I met her in the little restaurant where Janet had had her 
first glimpse behind the scenes of life in Paris. She was 
dining with Mickleham and several others, but saw me at 
once when I stood on the inside of the door with pink cur- 
tains, and made a funny face at me, as though I were in for 
a hot time. Mickleham waved his hand cheerily. 


le Little Novels of Nowadays 


“Now what’s the matter?” I thought, with a guilty con- 
science. 

The matter was quite serious, as I found out later in the 
evening. Owing to the crowd at Pat’s table, where for once 
she was behaving quite nicely, except for occasional frivolities 
with the gargoyle-faced waiter, I took a vacant seat at a 
table, where I found two other friends, no other than little 
Sonia Recochewitz, the Russian dancer, whom I had met on 
the Aquitania, and O’Calloran, the young Sinn Feiner, who 
told me that he had escaped from an English prison after a 
brief spell of war in County Cork. Sonia was dancing in 
Paris, and had not lost her whimsical blend of childish hu- 
mour and sad knowledge, nor her trick of converting a table 
napkin into comic animals. I think a love affair was in 
progress between her and O’Calloran, judging by the way 
she fondled his hand with her little white fingers. How- 
ever, that was none of my business, and when they went 
away together at nine o’clock, because Sonia was dancing at 
half-past—she had eaten nothing, I noticed, while O’Calloran 
dined—I was glad to see Pat jump up from her table and 
come across the room to me, where I now sat alone. 

“A cup of coffee,’ she commanded; “and silence for a 
tragic tale!” 

““What’s the tragedy?” I asked. ‘Where’s Paul?” 

She sat down, with her elbows on the table and her chin 
tucked into the palms of her hands, and an elfin look on her 
pretty face. 

“You're a beauty!” she said, with the deepest sarcasm. 

“So I’ve been told before,” I answered very calmly. “But 
what’s the matter with that?” 

“I suppose you’re amused with yourself?” she went on. 
“You introduce a dollar princess in disguise to poor but hon- 
est folk, and then breeze away, careless of having stirred up 
a witch’s cauldron of trouble and wrecked a number of inno- 
cent and happy lives. You’re a monster, that’s what you 
ane lis 

“T’m a man of peace and goodwill,” I told her. “But 
what’s happened? What have you done with Paul?” 


The Game of Poverty 313 


She lit a cigarette and looked at me with mock tragedy, 
in which I now know there was a little reality. 

“T’ll tell you one thing that’s happened. Paul has aban- 
doned the sister who loved him for better or worse, in sick- 
ness and in health, in fat times and lean; who mended his 
shirts and his socks; who suffered his bad tempers, and 
nursed his sense of humour; and rejected the honourable love 
of innumerable young men, so that she might devote her- 
self body and soul to his temperamental needs. Now he has 
fled and forsaken her, leaving her lorn and lone.” 

“Fled! Where?” I asked, rather anxiously. ‘‘Fled how ?” 

“Paul has gone and got married,’ said Pat. 

She gave a hysterical little laugh, but began mopping tears 
from her eyes. 

“T feel the loneliest thing in Paris,” she said, with a sort 
of sob in her voice, though she laughed again at comedy 
mixed with tragedy. “l’ll have to marry some one in self- 
derence..’ 

“Look here,” I said, rather terror-stricken, “tell me 
straight what’s happened. Who has Paul been marrying?” 

“Well, he’s only done it once,” she said; “but it’s enough. 
He and Janet went off in a taxi-cab, and from the postmark 
on a picture post card they seem to be at Avignon. “Having a 
good time,’ wrote Paul. That’s the sort of thing he would 
write!” 

I confess that in my cowardice the face of one lady 
haunted me—Miss Alice Brandt. Of course, she would 
make me responsible for the whole business. There would 
be the very devil of a row. 

I spoke bitterly. 

“T thought Paul was a sentimental Socialist. How does he 
square that with marrying one of the richest girls in the 
United States? Rather inconsistent of little brother, isn’t 
ghee 

“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Pat, mopping her eyes 
with the corner of the tablecloth. “Janet has chucked the 
dollars.” 

“What do you mean by that?’ I asked. “Nobody can 


3 


314 Little Novels of Nowadays 


‘chuck’ a mountain of money. There it is, and there it stays, 
increasing at compound interest.”’ 

“Janet has chucked ’em all right,” said Pat. “Says she 
prefers the game of poverty... . ‘And wait till you know 
the squalor of it, my child,’ was what I told her with some 
passion, which left her cold, with the smile of a medizval 
saint. That’s how she caught Paul. He would have noth- 
ing to do with her as a rich young woman. Told her 
brutally that not even love would make him endure the curse 
of wealth. ‘I come to you in poverty,’ she said, ‘without a 
dollar in my purse!’ And sentiment became so sticky that 
I went into the bedroom with a sense of sea-sickness. Next 
day Paul kissed me on the forehead like a knight going forth 
to battle, and said, ‘I’ll be away for a week or two, old girl. 
Don’t fret, and thanks for being the best sister in the world.’ 
Oh, it was highly amusing, I can assure you.” 

Highly amusing, though poor Pat wiped her eye again 
behind a table napkin. 

She regained her gaiety when Mickleham came over to 
our table and said, “You two seem to be telling secrets. 
Can’t I share them?” 

“T’ll share my last crust with you, Billy,” said Pat, “if 
you'll help me to forget man’s ingratitude.” 

“Meaning Paul, or meaning me?” asked Mickleham; and 
he looked at Pat in a jolly comradely way, and added ina 
quiet voice, “I accept the offer of that last crust.” 

I left them to go to the Avenue Victor Hugo. I had to 
face this thing out, and the sooner the better. I was right 
in thinking that Miss Brandt would hold me responsible for 
what had happened. She did. Referring to the trust she 
had placed in me, she accused me of dishonour, ungentle- 
manly behaviour, criminal indiscretion, and other moral 
delinquencies to which I would not plead guilty. 

“You introduced Janet to disreputable young people,” she 
said, “and deliberately thrust her into the fires of temptation. 
I have no doubt that it was your own political views which 
have made the poor child utterly insane.” ; 

“What have my political views to do with the case, Miss 
Brandt?” I asked, rather savagely. 


The Game of Poverty 315 


“T always suspected you of being an anarchist,’ she 
answered in her iciest way. “Doubtless it is upon your 
suggestion that Janet repudiates her inheritance and refuses 
to touch a single dollar of what I hold in trust for her.” 

“She will revise her opinion when the shoe begins to 
pinch,” I said; “but in the meanwhile I shall be much obliged 
if you will withdraw charges against me which I resent 
because of their utter absurdity.” 

“T beg you to leave my house,” said Miss Brandt, “and to 
understand that our friendship is completely at an end.” 

Upon leaving her house for the last time, I met the young 
Duc de Méricourt. He had the look of a man who had 
gambled for big stakes and lost. 


It is only from the American papers that I have any 
further knowledge of Miss Alice Brandt, and I am bound to 
say that she has dealt with a difficult situation rather gal- 
lantly. In an interview with a New York reporter at Monte 
Carlo she denied the story told with great wealth of dramatic 
detail that, “Richest Girl in World Weds Paris Apache. 
Gives Brandt Millions to Bolshevist Funds for Overthrow 
Civilisation.” So far from this being true, stated Miss 
Brandt, her niece had married, with the full consent of her 
family, a young English author of remarkable genius, related 
to the oldest aristocracy in Great Britain—almost of Royal 
blood, it appeared—and the heir to considerable property 
in the North of England. His sister was engaged to Vis- 
count Mickleham, of Mickleham Park, Norfolk, well known 
for a time in American society as junior secretary of the 
British Embassy in Washington. 

It was the last item of news which took me to Pat’s apart- 
ment in the Rue de la Pompe. I wondered whether it was 
as true, or as untrue, as the family history of Paul Hirst. 
After three rings at the bell I perceived a bit of paper pinned 
to the door above the letter-box. It was in Pat’s scrawly 
handwriting : 


_ “Address: Viscountess Mickleham (strange as it may 
appear), Mickleham Hall, Norfolk. Back in Paris when 


316 Little Novels of Nowadays 


fed up with English respectability. Love to all who love 
me.” 


A note from Janet Hirst, just received at my hotel, tells 
me that she and Paul are still playing the game of poverty, 
in an apartment at Passy. From a postscript I guess that it 
is rather a strain. 

“Funds are low just now,’ she wrote, “as Paul is unlucky 
with his work. We are wonderfully happy, but poverty 
needs a lot of courage.” 


XII: A MISSION IN THE RUHR 


T is bad enough to be wrecked on a desert island with 
only Man Friday for human companionship. It is even 
less amusing, no doubt, to be a French lieutenant of mitrail- 
leuses—that is to say, in charge of a machine-gun section— 
guarding a desolate part of the railway line between Diussel- 
dorf and Essen. 

Lieutenant Delavigne of the French Army in the Ruhr 
could find no amusement of any kind in the signal-box from 
which for six months, day after day, he had stared out at 
the grass growing higher between the rails and sprouting in 
deserted wagons, and rusty engines motionless in the sidings 
of what had once been the most intricate and efficient net- 
work of railroad lines in Europe. 

For the thousandth time Lieutenant Delavigne uttered his 
complaint of boredom and despair: “Quelle wie!’ “What a 
life!” 

For the thousandth time the sergeant—his Man Friday— 
boxed up with him in this informal signal station, granted 
his agreement. 

“Name of a dog, yes! It is not amusing, mon Lieutenant!” 

It is never amusing to be one of a small body of men in 
a hostile country where one cannot walk down a street 
without getting black looks from every passer-by, or to go 
into a shop without so much as a civil word from the girl 
behind the counter, to say nothing of having a sentry shot 
at night in the back of the head by some German civilian 
skulking in the darkness. That had happened at this guard 
post. It might happen again any night. : 

It had been rather good fun at first to show the Boches 
that France meant business, and would stand no more non- 
sense about German reparations and unfulfilled pledges. 
To a young Frenchman who had seen the best part of North- 
ern France laid waste, and had heard a thousand stories of 

317 


318 Little Novels of Nowadays 


German arrogance and brutality to French people behind 
the lines—he had relatives in Lille who were not likely to for- 
get these things—it was not a cause for compassion when 
German railwaymen, refusing to work under French orders, 
were turned out neck and crop with their families, when 
German industrialists, bankers, mayors, and other officials 
were imprisoned for encouraging riots and resistance, when 
enormous bundles of paper money were seized and carried 
off in French lorries as part payment of French debts— 
though the stuff was hardly worth the trouble—and when 
threatening crowds of German miners were given a dose of 
machine gun fire to teach them manners. The Boches were 
getting a taste of their own medicine. All the same, it 
was very boring after six months. 

Lieutenant Delavigne was starving for a little human soci- 
ety, for a little human love, to be frank. What wonder, 
when a young Frenchman of twenty-five, extremely beauti- 
ful, as his glass told him, and very companionable with the 
fair sex, whom he adored, found himself shut up in a sig- 
nal-box with no other recreation than a few evenings in 
Essen, where even the prettiest girls—and he had to admit 
that some of them were seductive in their blonde German 
way—gave him at most one hostile, hateful glance, as though 
he were as ugly as a Senegalese! 

Sometimes he confessed his craving for a little amorous 
dalliance to Sergeant Michel, and that fellow from the Mont- 
martre district of Paris, where once he had driven a taxi- 
cab, responded with the sympathy of a fellow victim con- 
demned to a hermit-like existence. | 

“Life without women, mon Lieutenant, is like bread with- 
out wine. Now, if my little Marthe were in this signal-box 
it would make a lot of difference. The view outside 
wouldn’t matter two sous. I think I have told you about 
that girl Marthe, with her black eyes and her sharp tongue, 
mon Lieutenant?” 

Yes, he had told about Marthe, and Yvonne, and Suzanne, 
and lots of others. He had told more than he ought to have 
done, in his frightful dialect of the Paris slums, but these 


A Mission in the Ruhr 319 


love stories had helped to pass the time in the abominable 
signal-box. 

t was annoying to this man that the German women 
would not give him a civil word. He took his revenge on 
them by calling them “fat cows,’ and other unpleasant 
names. And yet, in candid moments, he admitted that they 
made good wives and mothers. 

“France could do with women like that,” he remarked. 
“Not afraid of having big families, and all their children 
as clean and healthy as though they had been fed on Brit- 
tany butter. France is dwindling away, mon Lieutenant. 
More deaths than births. Soon we'll be in the soup—when 
all these boy babies are old enough to fight us.” 

“That’s why we’re here,” said Lieutenant Delavigne. “To 
- keep them weak. To prevent them from arming again.” 

“Bah!” said the sergeant. “We can do that for five 
years, ten years, twenty years. After that the War of 
Revenge, mon Lieutenant—and France without allies. <A 
charming prospect for all of us!” 

He was a queer fellow, this sergeant, with leanings to- 
wards Socialism, and a cynical contempt for French generals, 
presidents and politicians, but a first-class soldier, and as 
brave as D’Artagnan of the Three Musketeers. He was a 
realist and stared facts in the face, and spat on them, as it 
were, in his argumentative moods, especially when they were 
disguised by the false optimism of the French Press. Every 
day in the signal-box he read Le Matin, two days old, with 
a kind of savage contempt. 

“All goes well in the Ruhr. German resistance is weaken- 
ing. The railway service is assured. The coal deliveries are 
excellent... .. Bah! If I had that journalist here I would 
wring his neck! He writes that from a café in the Boulevard 
des Italiens with a glass of vermouth at his elbow!” 

The young lieutenant rose from the cane chair which he 
had brought to this signal-box from a cottage down the line 
—it belonged to the family of a German railwayman who 
had been shot for sabotage—and stared out of the window 
upon which he drummed with his finger-nails. 


320 Little Novels of Nowadays 


That fellow Michel was not far wrong. That optimistic 
stuff in the French newspapers was eyewash for the people 
in Paris. These Germans in the Ruhr were a stubborn 
crowd and their passive resistance was not beaten yet. 
France was not getting the goods. The French Régie in the 
Ruhr was not even running the trains—not more than four 
out of the thirty that used to run each day over these rails. 
French occupation did not look like good business as regards 
the payment of French debts, or that “recovery of Europe” 
about which there had been so much talk after the Treaty of 
Versailles. It was like putting a monkey wrench into the 
machinery of German life—here in the Ruhr. It had just 
stopped. 

Lieutenant Delavigne wondered how it was all going to 
end—for France as well as Germany. 

Sergeant Michel seemed to answer his thoughts. 

“We're on the edge of a volcano, mon Lieutenant. It all 
looks very quiet over there in Essen, n’est-ce-pas? Yes, but 
wait a bit. We shall see some pretty bonfires before we get 
back to the Place de la Concorde. The flames of hell, mon 
Lieutenant!” 

He asked a question, abruptly, with a petit caporal cigar- 
ette lolling from his thin lips. 

“Do you know what’s being manufactured—wholesale— 
by German miners who don’t pick coal?” 

“What’s that?” asked the lieutenant. 

The sergeant struck a match and held it close to his nose. 

“Hate,” he said. “Hotter than this flame. Hatred against 
France. When I walk through Essen I can feel the fire of 
it scorching me from the eyes of German girls whom I’d 
like to kiss now and then, because they’re women and I’m a 
man, and human nature is human nature, mon Lieutenant. 
I can feel it flaring up in the heads of these square-skulled 
swine standing like dumb beasts at street corners, and watch- 
ing me with slant eyes as I pass in the uniform of France. 
They look tame enough, eh? Well, they’re getting hungry. 
No meat. Not enough potatoes. No fats for their stomachs. 
Precious little milk for their babies. Nothing but rage 
gnawing at their guts because of French fines, orders, im- 


A Mission in the Ruhr BPA 


prisonings, expulsions, requisitions. Hunger makes beasts 
of men—wild, tearing beasts. |] know, because I’ve been 
hungry, mon Lieutenant! One day they’ll break out, to find 
a way of escape. They'll start killing each other—the profit- 
eers, the shopkeepers, the big industrial folk. Then there'll 
be hell round here, and it won’t be a joke altogether for 
French soldiers in lonely machine-gun posts, or French 
sentinels at street corners. No joke at all, mon Lieutenant!” 

The young lieutenant looked at his sergeant with raised 
eyebrows. There was fear in the man’s voice, and Ser- 
geant Michel was a brave man who had won the Croix de 
Guerre at Verdun. 

“You're getting morbid, mon vieux,’ he said, with a 
nervous laugh. “It’s the absence of Marthe, and this loneli- 
ness.” 

“No,” said Sergeant Michel sullenly. “It is because I have 
a little pity for these German swine. I’m a democrat, mon 
Lieutenant; I believe in the common people of the world. 
Their right to live and get the fruit of their labours for their 
women and babes. Name of a dog! Even Germans have 
a right to live. If we deny them that we’re asking for 
trouble. People will rather die fighting than die starving. 
I’m of that opinion.” 

“Your opinion is dangerous, mon vieux,” said the young 
lieutenant coldly. “Opinions of that kind are reserved for 
politicians in Paris, and not for sergeants of machine-gun 
sections in the Army of the Ruhr.” 

He spoke severely, as a matter of discipline, but secretly he 
agreed a little with his argumentative sergeant. After six: 
months in the Ruhr he was beginning to see the danger of 
it. It would do no good to France, perhaps, if Germany 
broke up in anarchy. 

“Politicians in Paris!” said Sergeant Michel, with a fine: 
expression of disgust. “That dirty breed! While they’re 
arranging the ruin of the world, you and I, mon Lieuten- 
ant, languish in this signal-box without women, without love, 
without any joy of life. Now if I had the misfortune of 
being President of the French Republic e 

Lieutenant Delavigne never had the advantage of knowing 


A) 


O22 Little Novels of Nowadays 


what his sergeant, Henri Michel, of Montmartre, would 
have done to save the world if he had been President: of 
the French Republic. The man’s words were interrupted 
by the appearance of Colonel Dubois, commanding'the 150th 
Section of Mitrailleuses, accompanied by a general whom the 
young lieutenant recognised with awe. 

Both Lieutenant Delavigne and his sergeant sprang to their * 
feet at the unexpected and terrifying visit of these exalted 
officers. 

It was Colonel Dubois who spoke first, with a friendly nod 
to the young lieutenant. 

“This is the young man, general. He speaks German per- 
fectly, and you can see for yourself that he is a handsome 
fellow. I can vouch for his intelligence.” 

Lieutenant Delavigne blushed deeply at these amazing 
- compliments, but remained silent with his hand at the 
salute. 

The general, an elderly man with a tanned face, much 
wrinkled, and a little white moustache, gazed searchingly 
at the young lieutenant with a friendly and amused smile 
under his shaggy eyebrows. Then he nodded in a fatherly 
way to Sergeant Michel, and said: “You can leave us, my 
friend. We wish to have a little private talk with your 
lieutenant.” 

Sergeant Michel saluted rigidly, made a right about turn, 
and went down the steps of the signal-box. 

The old general sat down in the cane chair and lit a ciga- 
rette. 

“How goes it in this guard post?” he asked pleasantly. 

“Very well, mon Général.” 

“But rather boring, eh?” 

“Excessively, mon Général. Nevertheless 

“Quite so. You know your duty. Boredom is part of 
it, for all of us. All the same, you would prefer a less 
isolated post, a little human society? Perhaps even the com- 
pany of a pretty woman?” 

Lieutenant Delavigne was utterly abashed by these ques- 
tions. He wondered if it were the general who had gone 
mad or himself. A little human society! The company of 


39 


A Mission in the Ruhr 323 


a pretty woman! What had that got to do with military 
discipline, or a machine-gun section? He stammered an 
answer. 

“It is a trifle lonely at times, mon Général.” 

The old man’s eyes were fixed on him with a twinkling 
amusement. 

“You will be interested to hear that you have won a 
beauty prize, mon Lieutenant. I made inquiries as to the 
best-looking officer in the Army of the Ruhr—the most 
débonair, the most irresistible to any woman of taste. Your 
name was reported to me among others, by Colonel Dubois. 
I am happy to tell you that I agree with those reports.” 

Colonel Dubois and the general laughed together heartily, 
while the young lieutenant blushed more deeply and looked 
ready to die with embarrassment. 

“Doubtless it is a joke, mon Général,” he said faintly. 

The old general finished his laughter and puffed at the 
cigarette which he had put into an amber mouthpiece. 

“Not altogether a joke,” he said, more seriously. “I have 
need of a good-looking young officer, but also one who 
speaks the abominable German language—in itself an heroic 
achievement for any Frenchman—and one who has intelli- 
gence, discretion, and a cool head. Colonel Dubois tells me 
you have those qualities. Do you agree with him?” 

Lieutenant Delavigne agreed with his Colonel perfectly. 
But modesty forbade an open avowal. 

“T speak German, mon Général, and my intelligence is, per- 
haps, slightly superior to that of the average imbecile.” 

The general seemed satisfied with this self-judgment. 

“Good! I have already tried one or two average imbeciles 
on this mission, and they have failed miserably. It is for you 
to succeed.” 

“What is the mission, mon Général?” 

The old general outlined the mission in a dry, official way, 
as though giving orders for a military operation, and before 
the end of it Lieutenant Delavigne was very pale. 

“You will proceed to take up your billet in the house of 
the Fraulein Anna von Kreuzenach—what a _ break-jaw 
name! As you know, she is the daughter of Herr Heinrich 


‘324 Little Novels of Nowadays 


-von Kreuzenach, who is undergoing a sentence of ten 
-years’ imprisonment for inciting his factory hands to resist 
French orders. As you may not know, this young lady is 
one of the most dangerous enemies we have in the Ruhr, 
owing to her influence with the working people, and her inti- 
mate association with the Monarchists in Berlin and Bavaria. 
She is the confidante and confederate of the notorious 
Captain Freiheit, who has just escaped from prison and is 
organising a Royalist rising in East Prussia which may 
spread to other parts of Germany and increase our trouble 
in the Ruhr. That is for your information. Now for your 
orders. You will endeavour to win the confidence of that 
young woman. I may tell you, from personal observation, 
that she is extremely attractive as a sample of German 
womanhood, and, speaking without prejudice, mon Lieuten- 
ant, it is my opinion that beauty is without frontiers. You 
will persuade her that you have pro-German sympathies, 
owing to your Alsatian origin. Colonel Dubois tells me that 
your people are of Alsace, though you yourself were born and 
bred in Paris. Very well. You will turn that to advantage. 
You will obtain some information from the young lady 
about the Monarchist plans. You will discover the where- 
abouts of Captain Freiheit and the inner workings of his 
organisation. You will learn the identity of all visitors to 
the lady’s house, you will keep your ears open to their 
conversation, and you will report all your information direct 
to me at Headquarters.” 

Lieutenant Delavigne’s pallor increased towards the end of 
this monologue. 

He stammered but a few startled words. 

*‘An affair of espionage, mon Général!” 

‘Exactly,’ said the general dryly. “For the sake of 
France, which is playing for big stakes. I wish you good 
luck, mon Lieutenant. Needless to say, if you succeed——” 

Colonel Dubois patted the young lieutenant on the shoul- 
deri: 

“A great chance, my friend! Better than this signal-box, 
eh? And amusing work. The winner of the beauty prize!” 

He laughed heartily again with the general. 


A Mission in the Ruhr 325 


The old general gave the lieutenant a slip of paper. On 
it was written the address of the Fraulein von Kreuzenach. 
Arrangements had already been made for Lieutenant Dela- 
vigne to change places with Lieutenant Murger, who had 
failed so ignominiously. He could sleep there that evening, 
and explain his position as a liaison officer with the British 
command in Cologne. He could take the sergeant as his 
body-servant. 

The general touched his képi and left the signal-box with 
Colonel Dubois. 

Lieutenant Delavigne, alone again in the signal-box, stood 
motionless, staring through the narrow doorway above the 
wooden steps. 

“Name of a dog!” he said presently. He did not like his 
job. 


Before a week had passed, indeed, within twenty-four 
hours, Lieutenant Delavigne, of the French Army in the 
Ruhr, had decided that he preferred his old guard-post in 
the signal-box to the palace of Heinrich von Kreuzenach. 
It was less idiotic and humiliating. 

As far,as creature comforts went, there was, of course, 
no comparison. He found that he had been allotted—by 
orders of the French Army of Occupation—a magnificent 
suite of rooms in the great square house opposite the gates 
of the Kreuzenach factories where once a hundred thousand 
men had made the heavy guns for the German Army, and 
then, after the Armistice, typewriters, ploughs, railway 
engines, safety razors, and every imaginable article that 
could be fashioned out of steel to invade the markets of the 
world, until “passive resistance” had put an end to their 
labours. 

It was ridiculous, thought Lieutenant Delavigne, to have a 
bedroom large enough for a ballroom, and a drawing-room 
containing a grand piano which he could not play, to say 
nothing of the great gilt-framed mirrors which reflected his 
beauty from all angles—he was certainly, he agreed, a good- 
looking fellow—and innumerable gilt-backed chairs with 
embroidered silk, large pieces of Dresden china on ebony 


326 Little Novels of Nowadays 


pedestals, wonderful clocks which chimed the hours, and 
portraits in oils of Heinrich von Kreuzenach and his blonde 
wife, and his whiskered father and his bearded grandfather, 
and other ancient specimens of the family which had made a 
fortune out of armaments and steel. 

It was still more ridiculous for Sergeant Michel, late of 
Montmartre, to occupy two rooms hardly less ornate, and to 
sleep in a bed of rosewood and pink silk which would have 
been more suitable for some German Gretchen with yellow 
plaits and a silk night-dress tied up with blue bows. 

Sergeant Michel himself saw the humour of the situation. 

“That little devil Marthe,” he said, “will call me a-sacred 
liar when I tell her that I snored under a pink coverlet in a 
German palace. As for Suzanne, she’d look as pretty as a 
picture in this room with her hair down her back.” 

“The family,” said Lieutenant Delavigne, “doesn’t seem 
very sociable. And we’re not popular, mon vieux, in this 
German household.” 

“Wait a bit, mon Lieutenant,’ said Sergeant Michel. “Ti 
I don’t get a smile before the week’s out from that straw- 
coloured chambermaid downstairs, I’ll never wink at another 
girl along the Place Pigalle. Though I’ll admit she glared 
at me to-day as though I were a bit of evil-smelling dirt.” 

“The Fraulein Anna looks very haughty,” said the young 
lieutenant. 

He did not add, what was in his own mind, that she also 
looked extremely beautiful. So beautiful that to a young 
Frenchman who had been boxed up in a lonely signal-station 
for six months, staring at coal heaps and derelict wagons, she 
was, in spite of her German blood, like the vision of Bea- 
trice to Dante in exile. 

He had come face to face with her in the big marble- 
pillared hall downstairs, when Sergeant Michel was carry- 
ing his luggage from the taxicab outside. She was a tall 
girl, of perhaps twenty-two or three, with a mass of spun- 
gold hair neatly coiled in tiny plaits, and blue eyes—as blue 
as the cornflowers in Provence—and a rather thin face with 
a straight little nose, and a proud, sensitive mouth. He 


A Mission in the Ruhr aah ag 


thought that mouth of hers the prettiest thing he had seen 
in Germany since the occupation of the Ruhr. 

She spoke to him simply in French in answer to his salute, 
into which he put a touch of gallantry and deference. 

“Iam the Fraulein Anna von Kreuzenach. Now that my 
father is in prison—unjustly condemned, monsieur !—I am 
responsible for the household management and all arrange- 
ments here. When you have any complaints about my serv- 
ants, or your comforts, please address them to me.” 

“T shall have no complaints, Fraulein,’ said Lieutenant 
Delavigne, with the greatest respect and in very good 
German. 

Fraulein Anna looked surprised, and smiled faintly before 
she answered in her own language. 

“You speak German, sir? ... The last French officer 
who was billeted here had many complaints. About the lack 
of food—which your troops are preventing from coming 
into the Ruhr, so that our poor working folk are hungry— 
about the incivility of my servants, who, I admit, have no 
ardent desire to serve uninvited guests from the French 
army.” 

“He was a fool!” said Lieutenant Delavigne. “Utterly 
unreasonable! I regret exceedingly that my presence in this 
house may cause you some slight inconvenience. The situa- 
tion in the Ruhr is as painful to French officers—to many 
of us—as it may be to the German population.” 

“And it ts painful,’ said Fraulein Anna von Kreuzenach. 
That proud mouth of hers quivered. “And intolerable,” 
she added. “Intolerable and outrageous.” 

Lieutenant Delavigne bowed gravely. 

“We soldiers have, of course, no control over the political 
situation. We obey orders, however regrettable. As it 
happens, Iaman Alsatian. I am not altogether in favour of 
this French action in the Ruhr.” 

He was speaking according to the part laid down for him 
by military command. His orders were 40 ingratiate himself 
with this lady, to pretend to pro-German sympathy, to estab- 
lish “confidence.” That thought, the remembrance of his 


Seon Little Novels of Nowadays 


mission, came upon him with a kind of shame, and a deep 
blush crept up to his forehead. It was not quite a clean 
game, this, though it was done for France. 

Fraulein Anna gave him a quick, searching, candid glance, 
and then lowered her eyes. 

“One day,” she said, “France will regret the things she 1s 
now doing. They are not worthy of her spirit of ideals. 
And they are very dangerous—to France.” 

She seemed inclined to go on speaking. It was as though 
the sympathy expressed in Lieutenant Delavigne’s voice and 
words—his chivalry, as it seemed—had loosed some pent-up 
emotion of pride and indignation. Then some thought 
seemed to startle her and check her. The line of that mouth 
which the lieutenant liked so much hardened. , 

“T must go about my work,” she said, and with a slight 
stiff bow and her head raised, passed young Delavigne and 
went into a room between two marble pillars. 

Three days went by without his getting another glimpse of 
her. On the fourth day he met her at the top of the stairs 
leading to the bedrooms, but in answer to his quick deferen- 
tial salute and his obvious desire for a little conversation, 
she only bowed again, with a touch of colour creeping into 
her face, and did not even glance at him as she passed by. 

Sergeant Michel was able to gather a little information 
because he made frequent excursions to the servants’ quar- 
ters on pretence of cleaning the lieutenant’s boots, borrowing 
a brush for his clothes, inquiring about the shops in Essen 
where he might buy razor blades and various unnecessary 
things. One of the menservants spoke fairly good French, 
having been billeted behind the German lines in France dur- 
ing the war, and was not altogether unfriendly. He seemed 
inclined to practise up his French again, and became dis- 
tinctly less hostile when Michel told him, with a certain 
amount of sincerity, that he considered the French occupa- 
tion of the Ruhr “bad business” for France, and averred 
his belief in the brotherhood of the working classes across 
all frontiers, for the sake of world peace and the happiness 
of common folk. 

“And that’s a fact,” said Sergeant Michel to Lieutenant 


A Mission in the Ruhr 329 


Delavigne, “though I would willingly cut that fellow’s 
throat for his hatred of France.” 

From this servant, Hans Zimmerman, the sergeant had 
picked up a few little items of knowledge which might be 
useful. Fraulein Anna’s sitting-room, for instance, was on 
the right of the big hall downstairs between the two pillars. 
She locked the door every time she left it, and kept the key 
at her girdle. In this room she received every morning 
the managers of her father’s factory, officials in charge of 
the public soup kitchens and relief works, and other visitors. 
According to the man Zimmerman she paid over money from 
her father’s private fortune to maintain the passive resist- 
ance of his factory hands. She had been adored by the 
people of Essen because of her charity and good works 
long before the time of the French occupation. Her father 
had been hated then, although now his imprisonment had 
softened people’s hearts towards him. 

One queer thing in the family history was about her 
brother Siegfried. The French-speaking servant had let 
that out. This Siegfried was a young fellow of sixteen or so, 
who hated his father like poison, and was up to his neck 
with all the Communists in Essen who wanted to smash the 
great industrialists, take possession of the city and all its 
works, raise the red flag and refuse to pay a single mark 
either in reparations to France or in taxes to the German 
Government. 

“Monsieur Siegfried, in fact, seems to be a child after my 
own heart,” said Sergeant Michel, who was proud of his 
revolutionary sentiments, although in reality a most law- 
abiding citizen and loyal soldier of France. 

As it happened, by a curious chance, it was through this 
boy Siegfried that Lieutenant Delavigne was able to estab- 
lish more friendly relations with the Fraulein Anna, and to 
study her personality, which became to him a perplexing and 
engrossing study—not altogether good for his peace of 
mind. 

It was the seventh day of his ridiculous “mission.” He 
was returning with Sergeant Michel from luncheon in a 
French mess—where his brother officers were very curious 


330 Little Novels of Nowadays 


as to his mysterious departure from the machine-gun section 
—when at the corner of Essenerstrasse he saw a crowd of 
German miners gathered round a good-looking young man 
standing on a coal wagon with broken shafts. He was 
obviously making a political speech, in flagrant violation of 
French orders which prohibited all political demonstrations 
and the assembly of street crowds. | 

“Tf you'll take my tip, mon Lieutenant,’ said Sergeant 
Michel, “we had better get down a side street and turn blind 
eyes to those ugly-looking swine. Otherwise they may want 
to eat us for dinner, and I can’t see any of our comrades 
in the neighbourhood.” 

“This is interesting,” said Lieutenant Delavigne. “That 
is young Siegfried von Kreuzenach, if Iam not mistaken. I 
have a portrait of him in my bedroom. He is uncommonly 
like the Fraulein Anna.” 

He stood on the edge of the crowd, whose sullen eyes 
stared fixedly at the young orator so that they took no notice 
of the French lieutenant and his sergeant. 

That boy there on the coal wagon was a picturesque figure, 
a fair edition, thought the French lieutenant, of that young 
Camille Desmoulins who—more than a hundred years ago 
—in the gardens of the Palais Royale in Paris had stood on 
a tavern chair and called the mob to destroy the Bastille, as 
a symbol of tyranny. This tall German boy, with straw-col- 
oured hair and blue eyes, and a rather girlish face, was 
beside himself with passion, and his voice rang out above 
the heads of the mob around him. 

“My comrades, how long are you going to submit to this 
slow starvation and surrender of all your pride and dignity 
as men? Have the German people become slaves? Are you 
going to lick your chains? Are you going to remain the 
victims of a cowardly and corrupt Government—bought by 
war profiteers and swinish gamblers who make fortunes out 
of the falling mark, while your women wither for lack of 
food and your children die for lack of milk?” 

There was a growl from the mob, low and ominous: 

“Nem! Nein! Gott verhiite!l? 

“We are beset with enemies,” “cried the boy: 9° fhe 


A Mission in the Ruhr 331 


French Army of Occupation has us at their mercy. They 
plant machine-guns in our streets, expel our working men, 
with their wives and families, rob the population of its wages, 
and blockade the Ruhr to starve us into submission!” 

There was a groan from the crowd, and cries of “Gott 
strafe Frankreich!” 

The boy laughed with a kind of wild scorn. 

“Your greatest enemy is not the French Army. They 
would be powerless against the uprising of the German 
people. Your worst enemy is that Government in Berlin 
which is gambling with the lives of its people as they 
gambled and lost in the Great War. They have brought 
Germany to ruin by their financial frauds—that paper money 
which will not buy food for your stomachs nor clothes for 
your bodies. They have exploited their people for the 
interests of big business. They have made you the victims of 
their economic warfare with the great powers. Gun fodder 
in war! Slave labourers in peace!” 

Again there was a sullen roar from the mob. “Ja! Ja! 
Wir sind Esclaven!” 

The boy tossed his hands above his head in a mad, delirious 
way. | 

“Away with them! Rise in defence of your life-blood 
and your women. Declare a commonwealth of workers. 
Seize the factories, the banks, the mines, and take posses- 
sion of the wealth which your own industry creates. There 
is not a French soldier in the Ruhr who will dare to resist 
your right to democratic liberty. Their claims are not against 
you, but against the masters of your souls, the war lords, the 
profiteers, the industrial magnates, the gamblers of world 
finance, who use you as machines to make their wealth and 
refuse to pay their taxes and their debts. Be men, German 
workers of the Ruhr! Be free men!” 

A storm of passion rose in the crowd suddenly as though 
a wind had swept them. It was clear that this boy’s words 
had lit a flame in their hearts, but whether of rage and 
fury with him or against him it was hard for any outsider 
to see or understand. Certainly some were against him— 
one group which seemed to be dominated by an immense fel- 


Gan Little Novels of Nowadays 


low with neck and shoulders like a bull, and a head with 
close-cropped hair. It was this man’s voice which bawled 
loudest. 

“A traitor! A traitor to the Fatherland! A dirty Com- 
munist! Schweinhund! Tear his heart out and give it to 
the dogs.” 

This big fellow made a rush at the cart where the boy 
stood. The group about him was fighting fiercely with the 
other, and larger, part of the crowd. These miners used 
their fists like sledge-hammers. The noise of their thudding 
blows against each other was louder than the shouting. 
Heads were being cracked and faces bashed. 

Lieutenant Delavigne blew his whistle. It was answered 
from a side street, and a patrol of French infantry appeared, 
with a young lieutenant running ahead. From the surging 
crowd the big man with the bull neck forced his way with 
six or seven others, while blows struck them from every 
side. They were holding something, a limp and bleeding 
body which they shook brutally as they went. 

“Stand back there!” shouted Lieutenant Delavigne. 

He drew his revolver and fired over the heads of the fore- 
most men. Startled and sullen they fell back, letting their 
victim drop on the cobblestones. It was the boy who had 
stood in the cart, speaking wild, mad words. He lay there 
senseless, his flaxen-coloured hair dabbled in blood which. 
oozed from a gash on his forehead. 

The French patrol had come up, and their officer, very pale 
and panting, spoke to Lieutenant Delavigne. 

“What is it, mon Lieutenant? Shall I fire on these 
swine ?” 

“It may be unnecessary,” said Lieutenant Delavigne. 

It was obviously unnecessary. At the sight of the French 
soldiers the crowd of German miners dwindled away rapidly, 
sneaking down the side streets or disappearing into door- 
ways. 

“It was a slight argument on German economics,” said 
Lieutenant Delavigne to the other young officer. “This 
child got the worst of it.” 

He bent down over the boy and searched his breast 


b 


A Mission in the Ruhr 300 


pocket. It was stuffed with letters addressed to Siegfried 
von Kreuzenach. 

“T live in this lad’s house,” he told the officer in charge 
of the patrol. “Will you detach two of your men to carry 
him home?” 

“With pleasure, mon Lieutenant. Doubtless you will make 
a report?” 

“Without doubt.” 

In the marble hall of the great house of Heinrich von 
Kreuzenach, the boy, still senseless and bleeding, was laid 
down by the French soldiers. A maid-servant screamed at 
the sight of him. Lieutenant Delavigne spoke to her. 

“He’s not dead. Only slightly hurt, I think. Go and 
fetch the Fraulein von Kreuzenach, and ask her not to be 
alarmed.” 

When the lady came she was certainly alarmed. Her 
face was very white, and she gave a cry as she stooped over 
her brother and lifted his head. 

“It’s nothing,” said Lieutenant Delavigne. “A nasty 
knock on the head and a cut that bleeds a little. If I could 
have a wet sponge ie 
. “Bring it. Quickly!” said the Fraulein Anna to the servant 
maid. 

When the sponge was brought, Lieutenant Delavigne knelt 
down beside the boy and wiped the blood off his face and 
sprinkled the cold water on his forehead. It revived him 
at once, and he opened his eyes and groaned. 

“You see!” said the lieutenant. “He’s better already. 
No need for a doctor, even.” 

His eyes met those of the young lady for a moment. In 
the eyes of the Fraulein Anna von Kreuzenach there was 
gratitude and a little wonder. 

“You are very kind,” she said, in a low voice. 

Presently, when the boy was quite conscious again, Lieu- 
tenant Delavigne turned to his sergeant and said: “You and 
I will carry him to his room, Michel. Go steady!” 

“Trust me,” said Michel. ‘I know how one’s head aches 
after a knock-out blow. I once fought with an apache 
in the Rue Blanche % 


334 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“I will show you the way,” said the young lady. 

She led them upstairs to a room near her own, and they 
followed, carrying the boy, whose head was limp on the lieu- 
tenant’s shoulder. He was not heavy, for a lad of his age, 
but it was awkward turning the corner of the staircase with 
him, and he groaned again when they jolted him. But he 
smiled faintly and said: “Danke schon!’ when they laid him 
on the bed in his room. 

Fraulein Anna kissed her brother on the forehead, and 
then held his hand. Lieutenant Delavigne saw that she had 
tears in her eyes, and that her lips trembled. 

“My dear brother!” she said. “My dear, rash, unwise, 
little brother! How do you feel now? Would you like to 
see a doctor ?” 

The boy shook his head and murmured something in a 
sulky way. 

Lieutenant Delavigne saluted and left the room with Ser- 
geant Michel, closing the door very quietly behind him. 

In their own rooms Michel lit a petit caporal and winked 
at his own image in one of the mirrors. 

“Excellent business!” he said. “You and I have played 
the Good Samaritan, mon Lieutenant! We risked our lives 
for this son of a Boche. It will give us a better stand- 
ing in this house of the enemy.” 

“It was not for that I tried to rescue the child,” said the 
lieutenant, with unnecessary heat. “It was a question of 
humanity.” 

“TI agree,” said Sergeant Michel. “I hated to see those 
swine mauling that white mouse. All the same, it’s strange 
that after serving four years in the trenches and killing 
Boches like bugs—just as they killed us—you and I, mon- 
sieur, should feel a little pity because a young Bochelet is 
being mauled in a street fight. . . . It is the natural chivalry 
of the French spirit, no doubt.” 

“T didn’t like the look of that crowd,” said Lieutenant 
Delavigne. “They were angry beasts.” 

Sergeant Michel laughed. 

“They begin to show their teeth. To roar a little, on hun- 
gry stomachs, poor devils! . . . Monsieur, you and I stand 


A Mission in the Ruhr 6) 


without much safety on the edge of a volcano. When it 
bursts this city of Essen won’t be a health resort.” 

With that prophecy Sergeant Michel sloped away to his 
own room, to lie on the bed with the pink silk coverlet and 
read his latest love-letters from Marthe, Suzanne, Yvonne, 
and other ladies in the Paris slums. 

Presently there was a tap at the door, and the lieutenant 
answered it. 

Outside in the passage stood Fraulein Anna von Kreuze- 
nach. She spoke in an emotional way, rather breathlessly. 

“T thank you a thousand times, monsieur. Pardon me, 
because I forgot these thanks in a moment of alarm—because 
of my brother’s wounds.” 

“T have done nothing, mademoiselle, except my duty,” 
said Lieutenant Delavigne. 

She hesitated and seemed anxious to explain something 
which was difficult to say. 

“Doubtless you will have to make a report on this affair 
to your military authorities?” 

“That will be necessary, I fear.” 

“Yes,” said the lady. “But perhaps you will be good 
enough—kind enough—to leave out my brother’s name? 
At least not to let it appear that he was the cause of any 
riot. If he were imprisoned—or expelled from the Ruhr— 
I should be most deeply distressed.” 

She raised her eyes to those of Lieutenant Delavigne with 
a kind of pleading. 

“He is so young, monsieur! Such a boy—and so delicate! 
He is not accountable for his actions. All these tragic hap- 
penings, the hunger and misery of our people, the severity 
of your army, the ruin of Germany, have broken his heart 
and made him a little mad, I think. He talks wildly—as 
youth talks. He is an idealist because of his love for the 
working people who suffer so much, but he is in revolt 
against those who wish to save Germany by other means than 
mob risings and anarchy.” ? 

“Even against his own father, is it not?” asked the lieu- 
tenant quietly. 

She seemed startled by that question, and afraid. 


336 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“People have told you that ?” 

Lieutenant Delavigne nodded, and said: “We hear things.” 

“Tt is true, alas!’ said Fraulein von Kreuzenach. “He 
thinks my poor father has not acted in the interests of the 
people, but merely in defence of his industry and wealth 
—to escape reparations and defraud the French.” A faint 
smile touched her lips. “It is possible that you agree with 
him in that!” 

“Candour compels me to agree, gnddiges Fraulein,’ said 
the lieutenant. 

She made a little impatient movement with her head. 

“All the world thinks so! I only know that my father is 
an honest man, loyal to what he thinks the interests of his 
country, ready to die for it, if need be. But my brother 
Sieg fried——” 

“He is a Communist, it seems?” asked the lieutenant. 

She answered quickly and passionately. 

“He is a schoolboy, monsieur! A child who plays with 
fire, not knowing its danger. A young poet with impossible 
fantastic dreams of liberty and the rights of the people.” 

The lieutenant permitted himself another question, which 
he spoke with a touch of irony. 

“You do not believe in liberty, mademoiselle ?” 

“T believe in the old loyalties, monsieur. Loyalty to the 
Fatherland, loyalty to the spirit of duty and discipline, loy- 
alty, above all, to the only virtues which can save Germany 
and the world.” 

“What are those, mademoiselle ?” 

“Justice,” she said, “and charity.” 

“They are good virtues,” the lieutenant agreed, “but dif- 
ferently interpreted, gnddiges Fréulein. French justice . 
seems injustice to Germany. German justice seems fraudu- 
lent toch rance.: 

“But charity?” she asked. “Charity and fair play? Is 
there no compassion in the world for hungry men, despair- 
ing men, and the cry of the women and children?” 

With an impetuous gesture she put her hand on the lieu- 
tenant’s sleeve. 

“Monsieur, I warn you that if France interprets justice 


A Mission in the Ruhr Bah 


so harshly and has no thought of charity, there will be an 
outbreak of blood and fire in Germany which will set Europe 
alight and be unquenchable in the tears of the world.” 

She spoke with an intense conviction as though she saw 
the terror of which she spoke. 

“TI know my people,” she said, after a moment’s silence. 
“T know what is in their minds and hearts—their despair, 
their anger, their hatred, their anguish. I know those who 
are inciting them to action, one way or the other, with faith 
in violence, mob-rule, or monarchist risings. I am in touch 
with both sides, and I know that if we do not get relief by 
world-justice—quickly, quickly !—there will be an anarchy 
here in Germany that will shock humanity itself.” 

“Those are grave words, mademoiselle,” said Lieutenant 
Delavigne. 

He spoke gravely. This young man who thought himself 
so beautiful, who craved in his heart for the amorous pleas- 
antries of life, who had come into this house with orders to 
captivate this lady by his gallantry, forgot that side of his 
nature, and his own vanity, in this vision of the conflict that 
might come out of these teeming cities of the Ruhr. This 
lady spoke of what she knew. 

“Those are grave words,” he said again. 

“They are dangerous words,” she answered. ‘Why do 
I say them to you? First, because you are kind, monsieur! 
And, secondly, because you are here as a spy upon me, to 
report my words, movements, actions, to your headquarters. 
Well, then, report my warning, if you like! It is good for 
France to know. Only, if you are chivalrous, you will not 
make a victim of my little brother.” 

Lieutenant Delavigne was stricken speechless for a 
moment. Those words accusing him as a spy made him hot 
and cold by turns. 

“I trust you have made that accusation lightly,” he said. 
“A spy! ‘Surely, mademoiselle, you do not wish to insult 
me, after what you are pleased to call my kindness ?” 

The insincerity of his words shamed him as he spoke them. 
He felt a queer sense of sickness in his stomach. 

She smiled at him. 


338 Little Novels of Nowadays 


“Forgive me,” she said. “Spy is too strong a word in 
time of peace. Let us say—observer. After all, it is your 
duty to France.” 

He stammered something about the honour of a French 
soldier, and she nodded and held out her hand. 

“For what you did for Siegfried, grateful thanks, mon 
Lieutenant. If you would sit with him a little it would be 
a further kindness. He will be lonely, poor boy.” 

She slipped away from him down the marble staircase. 

Lieutenant Delavigne wrote out a report, three days later, 
on information obtained in the household of Heinrich von 
Kreuzenach. It was not sensational, perhaps, but it revealed 
a serious state of things in the city of Essen, and, generally, 
in the Ruhr. It would perhaps only confirm the knowledge 
already in the hands of the French authorities, yet perhaps 
even that might be of value as additional links of evidence 
in the proof that the population of the Ruhr was boiling up 
for an explosion of human passions, which would certainly 
affect the interests and authority of France. 

It was extraordinary—and consoling—to Lieutenant Dela- 
vigne that he had not been obliged to play the spy to obtain 
the facts in the report. There had been no need of melo- 
drama—listening at doors, stealing private papers, searching 
for secret drawers, and all that stage business of the spy in 
action which he had imagined would be necessary. 

On the contrary, he had obtained much that he wanted 
to know, much that was worth knowing, from the very 
people who should have been most hostile to him—young 
Siegfried von Kreuzenach and the Fraulein Anna her- 
self. 

At first he had been embarrassed and disconcerted by the 
candour of the boy. It had seemed rather mean and con- 
temptible to a man of sensitive honour to sit by the bedside 
of a sick boy—for he had been grievously bruised in that 
street brawl—playing the sympathetic friend and listening 
to all kinds of revelations which would be used in a secret 
report to the French Army of Occupation. The boy seemed 
utterly careless, deliberately reckless of all his blabbing. He 
made no secret at all of the Communist agitation and organi- 


A Mission in the Ruhr 339 


sation at work in the Ruhr. Rather he gloried in its grow- 
ing strength and imminent action. 

“France thinks she can tame us by hunger,” he said, with 
an ironical laugh. “What an absurdity! The workers were 
tame enough when there was food enough—as tame as fat 
sheep—but hunger is making them fierce at last—Gott sez 
dank !—and soon you will see a revolution in Germany 
which will sweep the country like a flame. I pray for it! 
It is our only chance of liberty. French oppression will 
overreach itself. It is playing into the hands of every 
honest German who wishes the liberation of his Fatherland 
from foreign enemies and the scoundrels who have betrayed 
it from within.” 

He gave the names of the leaders who were inciting the 
workers to revolt against their own Government. Lieu- 
tenant Delavigne memorised them, and afterwards wrote 
them down, almost sorry that the boy had blabbed so much. 
They were of all classes—professors, artists, foremen of 
mines, railwaymen. The leading spirit of all seemed to be 
a schoolmaster named Schultz, who, according to this boy,, 
was a man of genius, a great orator, and a born organiser. 
Always he went about among the workers in Essen, Dtissel- 
dorf, Oberkirchen, Bochum, inflaming their passion, preach- 
ing the gospel of liberty, enrolling them in his “Storm 
Troops of Free Workers.”’ There was another man—a Rus- 
sian from Moscow—who formed with Schultz and a miner 
named Feuerbach a Committee of Three, controlling the 
revolutionary movement and its plan of campaign. 

“We have a million men ready to rise when the signal is 
given,” said young Von Kreuzenach. “And our first action 
will be to depose the civil authorities and the industrial 
magnates.” 

“Including your honoured father?’ asked Lieutenant 
Delavigne, gazing at this boy with surprise and incredulity. 

Siegfried von Kreuzenach laughed. 

“My honoured father is safe in prison. So much the 
better for him! And so much the better for Germany, who 
would only be brought to ruin by his Monarchist plots and 
old-fashioned schemes of reaction by which the workers 


340 Little Novels of Nowadays 


would be more surely enslaved. Even now those Mon- 
archists are getting ready for another ridiculous ‘Putsch.’ 
This time they’ll be taught a lesson!’ So the boy prattled 
on, wildly, with amazing revelations. 

Lieutenant Delavigne warned him once against his own 
interests. 

“You tell me too much, young man,” he said. “After all, 
I am a lieutenant in the French army.” 

The boy laughed. 

“Do you think I care? Do you think I don’t know that 
every word I say will be reported to your headquarters? 
That is why I’m telling you. It will do France good to 
know that her tyranny is to be challenged by the uprising 
of the German folk, seizing their own destiny. What can 
your Army of Occupation do with sixty million people in 
revolt? Nothing but get out of the way of its fire and 
hell!” 

“Fire and hell won’t help Germany,” said Lieutenant 
Delavigne. 

“Yes!” said the boy, with a passion in his eyes. “Out 
of that fire the spirit of the German people will rise free 
and strong.” 

This boy’s fanaticism, his wildness, his childish indiscre- 
tion, seemed to the French lieutenant pitiable, as he lay 
there in bed with his blonde hair on,the pillow, and his 
girlish look. But what was more astounding was the con- 
duct of ‘the Fraulein Anna. She came sometimes and sat 
by the bedside of her young brother, although he was silent 
and sulky in her presence, and spoke ironical things about 
her Monarchist sympathy and her spirit of reaction. 

“You are a woman,” he said once, “and like all women, 
afraid of a little violence, and incurably sentimental. Ger- 
many won’t be saved by sentiment.” 

“It is because I want Germany to be saved,” she answered, 
“that I abhor all these plans of violence—on both sides. It 
will lead to worse ruin, and rivers of blood.” 

“A little blood-letting will do no harm,” said the boy. 

She looked at him in a despairing way. 

“Siegfried! You child! You poor ignorant child! You 


A Mission in the Ruhr 341 


are too young even to remember the horror of the War. 
Tell him, mon Lieutenant! Tell him of the agony of the 
trenches and the foul truth of war.” 

It was strange that she seemed to have no enmity to this 
French lieutenant, though she called him a spy, and believed 
that the actions of the French army in the Ruhr were 
“intolerable and outrageous.”’ She spoke to him rather as 
a man of sense who could rise above the passion and preju- 
dice of national sentiment, and see the pity and danger of 
this state of things in Europe. 

“It does not lead to peace,’ 
“Tt does not help humanity.” 

In spite of himself, and because of that appeal to some- 
thing higher than national pride, Lieutenant Delavigne re- 
sponded. to her attitude of mind. Perhaps, after all, there 
was more at stake in this business than French claims for 
reparations and French justice. Perhaps Europe was at 
stake, and the safety of civilisation. Perhaps this French 
adventure in the Ruhr, legal and just as he thought it, 
might lead to a spreading anarchy which would involve 
France herself and many nations, as this girl seemed to 
think. It was impossible to play the gallant with her. It 
was ridiculous to twist his little black moustache and think 
of his manly beauty in the presence of this German girl, 
whose eyes were straight and disconcerting in their candour 
and whose speech dealt with the gravities and sufferings of 
peoples in conflict. 

One evening she spoke to him outside the door of her 
room. 

wAC Ain -airaid.s sie: said: 

“Impossible to believe!” he answered lightly. “You are 
so fearless, gnddiges Fréulein.” 

She said again, “I am afraid,” and he saw that her face 
was white even to the lips. 

She glanced round the great marble hall, with its ugly 
black pillars on the ground floor where they stood, and 
then, as though satisfied that no one could hear them, spoke 
in a low voice. 

“You are an enemy of my country, and yet kind and 


bd 


she said more than once. 


342 Little Novels of Nowadays 


understanding, I think. It is because I think so that I am 
going to tell you something which seems like treachery to 
my Fatherland; which, indeed, is treachery to one of its 
best and bravest men.” 

He was astounded and utterly bewildered. 

“Tell me,” he said. 

She beckoned him, and led him through a door between 
the pillars, and stood there in this room furnished plainly 
as an office, with her hands on her bosom. She was greatly 
agitated and distressed. 

“There is a man,” she said, “who is coming to this house 
to-night. He is my lover. He is the man whom [I love 
best in the world.” 

Lieutenant Delavigne bowed stiffly. Instinctively he dis- 
liked the lover of this German girl, as he disliked the lovers 
of all pretty women. That was his French temperament, 
and his vanity of youth. 

“He has not come to Essen for love of me,” she said. 
“He has another passion, greater even than love.” 

“Is there such a passion, mademoiselle?’ asked Lieu- 
tenant Delavigne gallantly. 

She looked at him gravely. 

“As a French officer, you know it,” she answered. “For 
you it is Ja Patrie—for a German, the Fatherland. Even 
love is nothing to the passion of patriotism, for which men 
and women will risk everything and die gladly. Is it not 
SO bi 

“When one’s country is in danger,” said the French lieu- 
tenant. 

“Germany is in danger,” said the Fraulein von Kreuze- 
nach. “It is on the edge of ruin. This lover of mine thinks 
he can save it... . He is Captain Freitheit.” 

At the mention of that name Lieutenant Delavigne was 
startled. Every one in Europe knew that name, as that of 
the leader of the Monarchist rising which had endeavoured 
to overthrow the Republic, and had caused a week of civil 
war and bloody folly in the outskirts of Berlin. That was 
two years ago, when there was still enthusiasm for the Re- 
public. Freiheit’s Royalists had been wiped out, and some 


A Mission in the Ruhr 343 


of his brother officers had been stamped to death by the 
mob when they were taken prisoners. Freiheit himself had 
been condemned to ten years’ imprisonment, but had recently 
escaped, through the connivance of his guards. He had 
appeared in Bavaria. It was known that he was in close 
touch with Ludendorff and the old officers of the German 
General Staff. He had been a visitor to the Crown Prince 
in exile. He was the most active agent of the Monarchist 
plots in Germany, and time had worked in his favour. The 
French occupation of the Ruhr, the pitiful weakness of the 
German Government, and the financial collapse of Germany 
under a monstrous inflation of its paper money, had killed 
the Republican spirit in Germany, except among the ex- 
tremists of the’ Left, who proclaimed the Red gospel of Bol- 
shevism as the only alternative to Monarchist reaction. 
Captain Freiheit was the hero of middle-class Germany, 
and of all the Nationalists who looked to the traditions of 
the old régime as the one hope for escape from anarchy on 
the one hand and from France on the other. 

“He is coming here to-night ?” said the French lieutenant. 
“To this house in Essen?” 

He stammered out the words incredulously. Surely that 
visit would be known at French Headquarters? The fellow 
would be caught like a rat in a trap. 

“He has been here for a week—in the city,” said the 
girl. “Needless to say, he is in disguise and working under 
another name. You see, I am betraying him to you.” 

Lieutenant Delavigne stared at the girl. She was very 
white, even to the lips. | 

Yes, he said)! as a French ‘officer it. will be. my 
duty ” He broke off his somewhat pompous sentence, 
and asked a startled question in a human, boyish way. 
“Why do you betray your lover, gnddiges Fraulein? Even 
German women : 

She laughed bitterly at those last words. 

“Even German women ought to be loyal to their love? 
Yes! I think they are as true as French women, monsieur.” 
She made a gesture of impatience. “Let us talk without 
nonsense! I will tell you plainly why I betray my lover. 


344 Little Novels of Nowadays 


It is because I wish to save many good lives, and to stop 
a conflict which will lead to agony and blood.” 

She raised her hands with a little moan. 

“Have we not had enough blood and agony? Can there 
never be peace for women and children?” 

She seemed to forget the presence of the French lieu- 
tenant, and spoke in a low voice, so that he could hardly 
hear her words. 

“T think of the women and children, and the poor, simple 
men who are being rallied to one side or the other. Com- 
munism! That madness! And Monarchy, with its call for 
revenge and its defiance of France! What hope is there in 
such desperate acts? What possible result except a mur- 
derous struggle, and utter ruin, and misery beyond words? 
Surely if I can stop it—or hinder it—I am serving the spirit 
of peace, without disloyalty?” : 

She moved to a tall writing-desk, a heavy, old-fashioned 
thing with many drawers and, stooping a little, pulled out 
some papers fastened together with a piece of blue tape. 

“Sir,” she said to the French lieutenant, “here is the 
plan of Captain Freiheit and his friends for an armed 
rising in the Ruhr. You will see that it is a desperate 
scheme, and highly organised. The Communist minority 
will be powerless against such a well-armed force, although 
they will fight like wolves at bay, if my brother Siegfried 
is right. Captain Freiheit will be here at eight o’clock this 
evening. It may be in the interests of France to arrest him 
in this house. If I give you these papers which reveal his 
plans, I only ask one thing in return.” 

“Yes?” asked Lieutenant Delavigne coldly. 

“Your word of honour that my betrayal of Captain Frei- 
heit, my dear lover, will never be revealed.” 

“My word of honour as a gentleman and a French 
officer,” said Lieutenant Delavigne. 

He took the girl’s hand, and raised it to his lips. 

“It is a betrayal for love’s sake,” he said, “to save inno- 
cent blood, and shut the gates of hell.” 

He spoke with no sham emotion, but sincerely. 

“What can one woman do against the rising tide of pas- 


A Mission in the Ruhr 345 


sion?” asked Anna von Kreuzenach, and then she wept a 
little. 


The French lieutenant made his report, and handed in his 
papers to the old general who had come to the signal-box 
with Colonel Dubois. That is to say, he handed them to 
the general’s aide-de-camp in the hotel which was French 
Headquarters in Essen, and said: “This matter is very 
urgent, mon Capitaine, and of great importance.” 

The young officer smiled faintly in a supercilious way, 
and kept the papers waiting in his desk for quite a time 
before he condescended to take them to the general. 

Lieutenant Delavigne smoked several cigarettes, looked at 
the last number of L’Illustration, and read the advertise- 
ments of face creams and hair tonics in an absent-minded 
way for half an hour afterwards. All his thoughts were 
concentrated on the amazing betrayal of Captain Freiheit 
by this girl, Anna von Kreuzenach, who loved him. For 
him, Armand Delavigne, it was of course amazing luck! 
He knew that. Fate had lifted him out of his obscurity as 
a lieutenant of a machine-gun section. This knowledge he 
had brought was of vital importance to France, and to 
the world. In the papers which the Fraulein Anna had 
given him were the plans and date of a Monarchist rising 
which would undoubtedly result in civil war in Germany. 
If that happened France might whistle for reparations. 

It is not surprising that a young lieutenant of the French 
army should feel himself exalted by the importance of his 
mission, and flatter himself that his tact and sympathy and 
good looks had procured this information. But that ego- 
tism, natural and inevitable to a young officer, was sub- 
merged beneath a wave of admiration and pity for the lady 
who had sacrificed the loyalty of love for one man to the 
larger loyalty of love for humanity, for the German people, 
and for the cause of peace. 

“The general will see you,” said the supercilious officer, 
opening the door leading to the inner room. 

Lieutenant Delavigne stood inside the doorway, with his 
hand at the salute. 


346 Little Novels of Nowadays 


The general was at his desk, signing some papers, while 
he held a cigar in his left hand. His gold-embroidered képi 
lay on a chair at his side, and the buttons of his tunic were 
undone. 

He slashed at his signature, dropped the pen, and looked 
up at the lieutenant with a glint of amusement under his 
shaggy eyebrows. 

“Come in, mon Lieutenant, and shut the door behind 
you.” 

Then he rose from his chair and patted the lieutenant on 
the shoulder. 

“Trés bien! You have brought some useful information. 
I thought your good looks would establish confidence and 
get on the right side of a pretty lady! The best lovers 
are the best spies.” 

Lieutenant Delavigne blushed deeply. He did not relish 
the general’s jocular remarks, or that mention of spies. 

The general put on his gold-rimmed pince-nez, and 
glanced at the papers. 

“We knew a good deal of this,” he said. “We had all 
the threads of the plot in our hands. Barring the date for 
the rising. That is important, though of course it is liable 
to change.” 

He was not astounded or excited by the revelation in 
those papers. Lieutenant Delavigne was disappointed be- 
cause the general was so calm and unimpressed. 

“As for Captain Freiheit,” said the old man, “I see you 
write in your report that he will visit the Fraulein Anna 
von Kreuzenach at eight o’clock this evening. That is an 
error.” 

“Pardon me, mon Général,” said Lieutenant Delavigne, 
“T have that information beyond all doubt.” 

The general smiled and shrugged his shoulders. 

“Fate has decided otherwise. Captain Freiheit was killed 
two hours ago by the Communist leader Schultz. We have 
arrested the murderer.” 

“Killed, mon Général?” 

“Shot through the head in a busy street.” 


A Mission in the Ruhr 347 


The general stared down at his desk and drummed on his 
blotting-pad. 

“Whether it is good for France—and it is my duty to 
think only of that—I cannot tell. It saves me from the 
necessity of arresting the murdered man. On the whole, 
I am in favour of non-intervention between German Com- 
munists and Monarchists. If they like to kill each other 
in large numbers, so much the better for France. If they 
plunge Germany into anarchy and disrupt the German 
Reich, again so much the better for France.” 

He put his hand again on the lieutenant’s shoulder. 

“You have carried out a difficult task with intelligence 
and zeal. Your promotion will follow.” 

“Merci, mon Général!’ 

Lieutenant Delavigne saluted stiffly. 

But in that moment of exaltation because of this promise 
he had a sense of pity for a German lady whose lover lay 
dead. Her betrayal for a larger cause had been made in 
vain. Death had arrested Captain Freiheit and put him 
out of harm’s way. 

There was a tinkle at the general’s telephone, and the 
old man picked up the receiver and listened. 

He answered “Yes, yes,” and “No, no,” and then snapped 
out some orders. 

“The machine-gun section will be reinforced. Do not 
open fire unless the mob’—he used the word “canaille’— 
“attacks our guard posts. After that sweep them ruthlessly, 
without pity.” 

He laid down the receiver and lit a cigarette. 

“The Communists have broken loose already,” he said. 
“Rioting, pillaging, burning. Get back to your machine-gun 
section, mon Lieutenant. The music of the mitrailleuses is 
the best tune for a soldier’s ears.” 

Lieutenant Delavigne did not proceed directly to his old 
signal station. He returned to the house of Anna von 
Kreuzenach to fetch his kit and Sergeant Michel. The 
music of the mitrailleuses was very loud in the direction of 
the Kreuzenach factories, and out of the darkness in that 


348 Little Novels of Nowadays 


quarter red flames shot up and the sky throbbed with the 
glow of fire. The volcano was in eruption—the volcano of — 
a people’s passion. 

One spark of it touched the body of the French lieu- 
tenant. A stray bullet struck him in the side as he walked 
towards the front door of the big square house opposite 
the factory gates. He staggered and put his hand to his 
side and cried out, “Mon Dieu!” before falling on the pave- 
ment in a twisted way. He tried to rise, but fell back 
again, and writhed a little because of sharp pain, until he 
lost all physical sensation and was conscious only of self- 
pity and great weariness. 

It was Sergeant Michel who found him senseless two 
hours later and carried him indoors with foul curses, and 
then bent over him with a cry of “Mon Lieutenant! Mon 
camarade !” 

In the big hall, with its ugly pillars of black marble, the 
Fraulein Anna von Kreuzenach, who had lost her lover that 
day, knelt beside the man who had been a spy in her house, 
and put her arm under his head and gently raised it when 
for a few moments he recovered consciousness. 

He smiled and spoke faintly. 

“On the other side,’ he said in French, “there is, per- 
haps, no problem of the Ruhr! No frontiers of hatred, 
mademoiselle.” 

They were the last words of a French lieutenant, and 
rather gallant, I think. 


THE END 


¥ AS nes Caney 


NT 


3 0112 0458 


